Valentine's Dinner Recap - 2014

As I mentioned in Friday's post, I  made a special Valentine's Day dinner for our family.  What you may not know is that I am NOT a good cook.  I can bake pretty much anything but cooking is beyond me.  I think it's the measurements.  In baking the measurements are exact.  Add 1/4 cup of this to 1/2 cup of that and stir until mixed.  But with cooking it may SAY 1/4 cup but it really means around 1/4 cup or whatever tastes good or looks right.  And that does NOT fly with my OCD/Type A personality.  So I usually stick to the basics while cooking but I thought you know it's Valentine's day and I'd like to do something special for my family so I decided to get a little crazy and roast a chicken.  Kroger (our local grocery store) had a great sale on whole chickens so I bought one, and then promptly had a little panic attack.  But thankfully YouTube came to my rescue when I searched for "how to roast a chicken" and a video came up with a "fool proof roast chicken".  If you want to watch the video click here. And although he made it look very easy, I have been known to burn water, so I wasn't too confident. So let's go over the other things I made first and then we will get on to what happened with the chicken.  

So first I decided to cook some veggies in the crock pot!  I cut the potatoes in to eights? I don't know? Pieces!, about half the onion and that whole bag of carrots (cut into chunks).  I put a little olive oil in the bottom so they wouldn't stick. 

Then I topped it with salt, pepper, and butter.  Cause butter makes everything BETTER!!

Then this happened!  I stuffed and trussed the chicken.  I stuffed it with garlic, onion, lemon, & thyme. And can I just say that I did set the laptop on the counter while I was doing this so that I could kind of cook along with the video.  Can I also say that I'm pretty sure everything in our kitchen, including the laptop, got salmonella from me touching it.  But I will say I did disinfect everything once I was done!  Thank goodness for Lysol and Clorox wipes!

And while our chicken was cooking I decorated our delicious gf (gluten free) chocolate cake! I just frosted it with pink vanilla frosting and threw some raspberries on the top for looks! Sorry the picture is sideways, I tried to fix it but it just won't fix! And I'm not computer smart.  SORRY! Turn your head to the side and imagine how amazing it looks.  I want to give a huge shout out to Betty Crocker for rocking the gf mixes at a price that isn't outrageous!  Us gf people love cookies, cake, & brownies too! 

I also made a loaf of bread not shown in this post.  It was just a basic 2lb white loaf from our bread machine.  If you want the recipe (not gf by the way) I can make a post about that just let me know!

So then came the moment of truth! It was time to take the chicken out of the oven.  And this is what I found!

WHAT? A perfectly browned, perfectly done, and wonderfully smelling chicken.  The video even showed how to make a pan sauce from the dripping which I did and it was AMAZING!  We un-stuffed the bird, cut him up and ate him!  And it was delicious!!  We have been having left overs all weekend and it just as good the day after and even two days after!  I would HIGHLY recommend this roasting recipe!  It was delicious!  

In fact here is a picture of some left over meat with the pan sauce.  Yum!  I'm hungry just looking at the picture.  Well my Valentine's Day was complete with a new stick roller from my Valentine and lots of love from the kids!  Valentine's Day 2014 was a HUGE success!  Maybe I'm not such a bad cook after all.  Maybe I just need some better recipes and a little more practice!

What did you do for Valentine's Day?  Did you get or give something special?

Love, Lacey