The Perfect Roast Chicken

A rainy sunday in my house means that I get the opportunity to cook some form of meat or poultry in a way that my weekday schedule doesn't allow for any-longer. This week i opted for a roasted chicken and roasted asparagus. This was the perfect choice. It was comforting and healthy. With a few tweaks from Ina's perfect recipe, I now have a chicken recipe that fits the needs of my small family. The best part is that the simplicity of chicken is something that this pork belly lover still appreciates. I really cannot believe that this came out of my oven. Maybe next time I will try wrapping it in bacon :)


Ingredients for Ina Garten's Perfect Roast Chicken-recipe on Foodtv.com

1 (5 to 6 pound) roasting chicken
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 large bunch fresh thyme, plus 20 sprigs
1 lemon, halved
1 head garlic, cut in half crosswise
2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) butter, melted
1 large yellow onion, thickly sliced
4 carrots cut into 2-inch chunks
1 bulb of fennel, tops removed, and cut into wedges
Olive oil

The play by play:

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Remove the chicken giblets.

Rinse the chicken inside and out.

Remove any excess fat and leftover pin feathers and pat the outside dry.

Liberally salt and pepper the inside of the chicken. Stuff the cavity with the bunch of thyme, both halves of lemon, and all the garlic.

Brush the outside of the chicken with the butter and sprinkle again with salt and pepper. Tie the legs together with kitchen string and tuck the wing tips under the body of the chicken.

Place the onions, carrots, and fennel in a roasting pan. Toss with salt, pepper, 20 sprigs of thyme, and olive oil. Spread around the bottom of the roasting pan and place the chicken on top.

Roast the chicken for 1 1/2 hours, or until the juices run clear when you cut between a leg and thigh.

Remove the chicken and vegetables to a platter and cover with aluminum foil for about 20 minutes. Slice the chicken onto a platter and serve it with the vegetables.

My own 2 cents:

1) As a side note, I used a 3.5 pound chicken to feed 2 hungry adults. Due to the smaller bird and smaller cavity, I used half the head of garlic and half the lemon. I sliced up the lemon and added it into the toasting pan. This size bird took one hour to cook at same temp.
2) To avoid another pan, I added 1 pound of red potatoes cut in bite size pieces in with the carrots, onions, and fennel.
3) About 1/2 way trough your cooking time, splash about 1/2 cup-1 cup stock over the veg. It is well worth it. A gravy forms during cooking with no extra work.
4) when the bird is done, tent with foil on a carving board and put the roasting pan with the veg back in the oven to crisp up.

Thank you Ina for another great building block that I can use for a lifetime!



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Location:Carlton Ave,Brooklyn,United States

Food Truck Rally

Headed out to the Food Truck Rally in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. 20 local food trucks came out for this once a month event. The rain held out and we had a blast. There were sweet and savory options for one and all.


This is a ice cream sandwich made with brown butter ice cream and white chocolate/maple cookies. The food truck was called Cool Haus.


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Location:Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn

National Ice Cream Month

This is a review of a new ice cream shop that opened up in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. The name is Ample Hills Creamery. In a word-yum!

Thank you Brian and all the lovely folks at Ample Hills Creamery. Thank you for delivering the quality product that ice cream should be. Thank you for making ice cream with such love and care that I wouldn't mind gaining 5 pounds this summer just to enjoy your product.

4 of us traveled in from Fort Greene this past Saturday and each sampled a flavor on our maidan voyage:

1) Peanut Butter Cookie-Amazingly made with fresh baked cookies!
2) Weekend Brunch-with pieces of french toast in a cinnamon ice cream
3) Salty Crack Caramel-rich and filled with pieces of burnt caramel
4) Breakfast Cereal-infused with cereal and with fruit loops in it!

All the flavors were equally amazing and full of life and flavor. We each decided that this was in fact the best ice cream that we have ever had the pleasure of enjoying. We were a little bummed that the peppermint patty and other flavors were sold out, but that just goes to show you how popular this new spot is.

Since trying it for the first time, we have traveled back multiple times and have never been disappointed. I have personally tried so many flavors that I have lost count. My top 3 are: peanut butter cookie already mentioned, peppermint patty which has in house made candy in it and raspberry blonde which has hand made blondies and raspberry jam mixed in. Amazing!!!






What I really love about this new addition to this area is the fact that nobody working there or making the ice cream was taking themselves too seriously. There are a few in Brooklyn and Manhattan that are very snooty about their ice cream and ingredients, but not Ample Hills. They really look like they are having the best time making ice cream.

I cannot wait for the fall so that I can taste the season through ice cream. Thank heavens for small miracles!

Week Off Between Jobs...

With a new job in my future, the week of May 2nd was a week that I could spend taking care of all the things that I wasn't able to ever do with a regular 9-5. I knew that with this week off I wanted to have a few meals out on my own in the city and take care of the errands that always get put on hold. Most importantly, I got to eat!

On my first day off I went to the Chelsea area of NYC with the hopes of happening upon a restaurant that tickled my fancy. I got that and more! I decided to walk cross town on 23rd Street towards my FAVORITE French Macaron bakery and passed by a BBQ spot that we had been meaning to try for a very long time. RUB BBQ is located @ 208 West 23rd Street.

Short version: Solid BBQ, lots of options, reasonably priced.

My Top picks: pulled pork sandwich and vinegar based cole slaw were well flavored and super tender. I was really tempted to order the onion straws, but I opted instead for the free beer that I was offered with a Yelp.com check-in that I did right from my IPhone App. Very cool to get free things!

So Tuesday came and went and my belly was full and happy. The weather was in the 70's and the sun was shining in NYC. Good week to be in between jobs! No week off would be complete for me or my boyfriend without a trip to one of the best pizza places in all of the boroughs. We opted to travel on a beautiful May afternoon to the Upper West Side of Manhattan to enjoy the wonder that is Patsy's Pizzeria.

Patsy's is located 61 West 74th Street between Columbus Avenue and Central Park West. The bottom

line about this pizza is that it is amazing. Please keep in my mind that if I had to rate this place on a

scale of 1-5 stars, I would have given it 2 because of the service, but I am here to let you all know about

the food that I enjoy in this life, not the waitstaff.

Anyway, back to the pizza. The crust is perfect, thin, chewy, and crisp in all the right places. The cheese is sweet and mellow and the sauce is tart and sweet the way it should be. There is also a good amount of fresh leaves of basil to top it off with a drizzle of EVOO. OH MY GOODNESS. As you can see by the picture below, this is a beautiful pizza. SO SO GOOD!

Definitely one of NYC's best places to get pizza (besides Lombardi's).

Back Outdoors @ the Bklyn Flea

We waited all winter for this. We walked and worked through blizzards, storms, ice, sleet, and frigid temps to make it to this moment. This moment is the opening of the Brooklyn Flea in Fort Greene.

Since 2008 this had become a foodie and shopping destination for many. The very best part is that we have the great advantage to live within walking distance of this amazing one of a kind destination. It is fun for the mind, soul, and belly!

I had the wonderful opportunity to go to the flea this past weekend and couldn't wait. I had been counting the days until I could go back to our Saturday routine of enjoying what the Flea had to offer.

Our choice between 4 of us was pizza from Pizza Moto, a food vendor that makes and sells pizzas out of of fire biting oven that they have attached to a truck hitch. This pizza is made with all the very best ingredients. From top to bottom. Yummy! The sauce is the best balance of sweet and tangy, while the cheese and crust marry in a perfect combination of chewy and salty.

Pizza Moto is one of our favorites and I will be sure to show some others as the season progresses. For now, enjoy!

Come on out to Brooklyn!!

I also have attached a photo of some homemade meat stick that the men love and for $1 it is a bargain here in Brooklyn.





Anchovy and olive pizza





And margarita pizza @ pizza moto.





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Location:Washington Walk,,United States

Dough in Brooklyn

A beautiful Winter day in Spring called for a day filled with walking in the neighborhood and enjoying the local eats.

Today took us to Dough, a recently opened doughnut shop in Bedford Stuyvesant in Brooklyn. Dough is an offshoot of a local cafe, Choice that sells breakfast, lunch, and dinner. This area of the neighborhood has been yearning for an establishment like Dough, and I thrilled to say that we experienced all of its glory today.

Dough is an unassuming space on the corner of Lafayette Ave. And Franklin Ave. We were a few hearse from the entrance when the sweet smell of doughnuts knocked us off our feet. Oh my goodness! The line wasn't terrible, but we went in around 2pm and they had been open since 7am (close daily @ 4pm).

Once it was our turn we knew that two flavors were sold out that we wanted to try-hibiscus and Nutella. So...we had to pick from all the other amazing flavors that were still available. My friends and I opted for a box of 4 @ $2 a piece.

1) blood orange glazed with candied orange
2) chocolate glazed with cocoa nibs
3) chocolate chipolte
4) cafe o' lei

They looked amazing and smelled amazing. I easily could have tried any other flavors, but felt good about our selection. Other options were lemon poppy, passionfruit, sugar, plain glaze, chocolate/Earl gray, toasted coconut, and lemon meringue. The most wonderful thing was that each donut looked unique and the thought behind each one was well thought out. You could see/watch the pastry creators through the viewing window working at keeping up with the demand. Simply amazing work ladies!!!

Onto the product...
There are no words...these doughnuts are light, crispy, chewy, fluffy, fresh, and delicious. The dough has just the right amount of sweetness and the glazes are superb. My personal favorite was the chocolate glazed with the nibs. The nibs acted as sprinkles and added the crunch. Yummy!!!

Dough gets an A+ from me!

Location:Carlton Ave,Brooklyn,United States

"Medium Raw"

I may be a few months late on this one (almost a year!) but I must put this out there. Tony is an amazing writer. I began his 3rd book last week and am sorry that it took me this long. The details, the stories, the voice. Good stuff!

I am not going to review this book, but I just wanted to say that if you are a fan of No Reservations-this is a book for you. If you love food-this is a book for you. If you want to know the ins and outs of what it is like behind the scenes of the life of a "celebrity chef" (he would kill me if he saw that)-READ THIS.

I cried laughing and got a great view of life in the food and tv world. Worth every minute I spend reading this. I hear Tony's voice whole I read. Truly great!!

I am not a book reviewer or a expert by any means, I just wanted to offer a book suggestion to anyone who has a passion for all things food, writing and life.

Happy Reading!

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