First Post

So I decided to start a blog. As if I wasn't busy enough already, what with juggling the two kiddies, fueling my Facebook addiction, and trying to keep my house from looking like it has never been cleaned. The thing is, I've recently started reading other peoples' blogs, and I have found that I really enjoy them. Plus, I know sometimes people start blogs partially so that their friends and family can keep up with them. This is an especially useful thing for me, since we pretty much live half a continent away from nearly everybody I know! I figured I would give this a try; at least I'll be exercising my long-dormant writing urges.

I think I'll mainly be writing about everyday life stuff most of the time, since the kids not only keep me occupied 95% of the time, they also provide enough entertainment for me to write whole novels about them. I also want to start, eventually, blogging about my food obsession. Namely, my treasured hobby of trying new recipes and new foods. I am still fairly new to cooking; I've really only been doing it for two and a half years now. It has become such a huge part of my life now, though. Granted, it's been a little tough lately to do much of it. The baby, Evan, likes to be held most of the time, and he's still too demanding of my attention for me to really cook anything that requires more effort than opening up some boxes and slapping stuff on a plate. Xander, my other boy, is also just demanding enough that between the two kids, well, let's just say it's a wonder that we eat dinner at all sometimes. Thank goodness for husbands! Especially ones that cook, and are good at it.

In fact, that leads me to talk about the dinner we ate tonight. Andy put together a roast chicken dinner that was truly awesome. He usually does a great job, but that's because it's usually loaded with butter and bacony goodness (I highly recommend roasting a chicken with strips of bacon draped across the top sometime. Absolutely delicious!) However, this time I challenged him to make it a little healthier. This is only week two of my "losing the baby weight" diet and I can't be derailed so quickly by evil yet delectable chicken. No, at least not until week three or four! So anyway, Andy made a slightly better-for-you, but still totally wonderful, roast chicken, complete with roasted potatoes and onions which soaked in the chickeny juicy stuff at the bottom of the roasting pan. Here's how it went down:

First, he stuffed the chicken's cavity with quartered onions and grapefruits, shallots, garlic, thyme, sage, and rosemary. Then, he stuffed finely diced jalapeno pepper and garlic (there can never be too much garlic, I believe) under the chicken's skin. Next, he rubbed the chicken, under the skin and above, with some olive oil and this fantastic new seasoning blend we picked up over the weekend at an international grocer. As far as we can tell, the blend was similar to a Cajun blend, minus the heat. It was delicious, all smoky and peppery, with a hint of tomato flavor. For the potatoes and onions, he just threw those in the roasting pan and basically let them do their thing while the chicken cooked. Soooo good. Here are a couple pics of the yummy goodness.

We loved it. It even passed the Xander test, which in our house always means the dish is an instant winner. Yum. Anyway, I hope to be sharing on here lots more recipes and delicious dishes, just as soon as I start cooking often again. In the meantime, I'll be telling stories and rambling about whatever strikes me that day, with maybe an occasional food story thrown in. Bear with me; the new diet leaves me hungrier and wanting to talk about food more often! My next post will totally be all about the kids...