adventures in the kitchen

Let’s say you have a hypothetical ‘friend’ who really doesn’t cook much at all, aside some manic baking once a year. Let’s say that she’s torn through every takeout and fast food joint in a 10 mile radius, and is feeling unhealthy and actually SICK of fast food. Let’s say she wants to start cooking dinners. BUT every other week she’s by herself, and every day when she gets home from work she’s too darn lazy to even think of cooking.

I’d tell her to start with her Crockpot*. BvP made a fantastic pot roast last week that fed us for two days. (He’s much more talented in the kitchen than I am.) I made some of Martha’s macaroni and cheese, which fed us for a day and a half. Then, I tried a Chicken Fiesta recipe from CrockPot.com (careful…that page resizes your browser), but it wasn’t a hit.

So John’s girlfriend Kristen gave me a neat recipe for cooking an entire chicken in the crockpot, along with veggies and Lipton Onion soup mix. That tasted great, and will definately feed us tomorrow as well.

But there were a lot of bones left. What does a low-level minion of Martha do?

I decided to make my own chicken broth. Which turned out okay, I guess. Except that during the ‘cover and simmer’ portion, I didn’t close up the venting ‘hole’ in the pot’s lid. So a lot of the steam escaped and instead of 6 cups of broth, I ended up with 2.

Well, that’s 2 more cups than I started with, so all is well. And right now, in my very own freezer there area 2 little Gladware containers of my very own chicken broth!!

Except now I have no idea what to make with the broth. (shrug)

*called “Slow Cookers.” Eventually they’ll be called “temperature-challenged cookers.”

PS…my NaNoWriMo is a bust. I could never get the story really rolling, despite a neat plot idea. Plus, work’s been stressy, so by the time I get home all I feel like doing is vegging on the sofa. And making broth.