Not Another Cooking Blog

You'd think that I was trying to alienate all of you. What, with yet another post about my dinner and no pictures of the kids. Hey, it beats posts about Bond right? Oops, I go on to talk about Bond at the bottom. Sorry.

Today I was thinking, what should I have for dinner (Ed is having last nights leftovers). We're getting ready to leave (in around 6 weeks) so I pulled some chicken breasts (or so I thought) out of the freezer. When it came time to cook dinner (read: too late to put them back and/or prepare something else), I realized that they were chicken legs with thighs that Nanna had got us when there was nothing else at the store. Seeing as I didn't have my staple cream of mushroom soup to drown fry them in (on the stovetop), I needed to come up with plan B. FYI, I don't have a plan B.

Speaking of leftovers, the kids had Shepard's Pie for the first time today (it wasn't ready in time for their dinner last night). Artemis finished her bowl and Max had two helpings.

It turns out that Nanna also cooked a mean Shepard's Pie this week. Her adaptation (to my recipe) was that she doesn't cook the hamburger beforehand. This ensures that it stays moist. I didn't have that problem but I used a ton of worcheshire sauce and added (an extra) egg.

So it turns out that I have more than two loyal followers. Okay, I knew this already but I thought that I would play up my patheticness (new word). In comes Amy to the rescue. She left me a comment with a link to a tried and true (unless you're me) roast chicken recipe.

Being the chef that I'm not (hence the post title), I decided that chicken legs/thighs was the same as a whole chicken and I would just pretend as such. I didn't want the potatoes (although I did have them) but figured that their purpose was to allow the air to circulate under the chicken. In turn, I put the chicken on a rack (I'm so adaptable). I also only cooked them for 45 minutes, because. No, I didn't just commit a grammatical error, it's just "because".


Well, the chicken turned out amazing (I never get tired of tooting my own horn). I served it with basmati rice and steamed broccoli (to go with Ed's dinner). I would have served it with freshly steamed beets but they're just cooking now.


I wanted to wait before picking the beets as we've been eating them every day for years weeks but Ed informed me that it's supposed to go down to -5 tonight so I didn't want them to freeze. Does anyone (read: Amy my loyal commenter) know if they would have been okay anyways?

Since my last request met with a successful outcome, anyone know an easy and tried and true (read: I can't mess up) gravy recipe?

Back to Bond. Apparently, I've seen #21, "Casino Royale" (2006). I had four "flashbacks" throughout the movie that reminded me I'd seen it. Fortunately, it didn't ruin any of the suspense (I have a bad memory). For reasons I can't figure out (Ed and I have tried), I want to give this movie a high rating. I hated the beginning (too short and simple), I hated the first half of the movie (the plot was not obvious and was different than the latter part of the movie), I absolutely loved the middle part (the casino scenes) and I kept waiting for the movie to end. Sure there was a twist but it came at the expense of my boredom and didn't make up for anything. "Q" wasn't in the movie and there was only one gadget. This was my first Daniel Craig movie and I thought that for the times (2006), he did a really good job. I think that they were trying to portray him as a "hardened" Bond but Craig managed to soften him up quite nicely. The female lead (Eva Green) was one of our favourites. I look forward to the next one (which I don't believe I've seen but who knows...). Ed rated it a "7" and I gave it an "8".

Next up, #22, "Quantum of Solace" (2008). The last of the Bond films (until 2012).