What's Cooking Good Friday

Jon kindly puts up with my incessant food show watching and DIY shows, but occasionally I can see him getting worried around the edges. Mind you, I was only passing the time watching the Martha Stewart Show about raising chickens. All I said that they were sure some pretty chickens. I was never considering sending for a big box of live chicken chicks. I can't find a spot to grow tomatoes or a little thyme and basil. Where would I put a chicken coop? And I must state while there is much I admire about Martha Stewart's skills (I have many of her cookbooks and often use her online recipes). I also often find her to be a little insane. I mean, I get that she has a farm and really gets into that life. But the thrust of that episode was that everyone should go out and get a pet chicken or even a whole coop. Why wouldn't you want to raise chickens seemed to be what she was asking. That's a trifle nuts, in my humble opinion.

Besides, I had plenty of stuff to do today. Though I'm not entertaining this year. Well, I'm always entertaining. I'm not having dinner guests for Easter this year. Anyway, I was volunteered to make some extra meats and greens for the folks at Lucy's soundstage. It's no real trouble. Everything is deeply discounted and it's very easy to scale up a pot of collard greens. I just spread the prep out over more days as I still tire easily. And then there is the final day of meatless Fridays to cook for. I made Spanakopita for me and buttered noodles for Jon. I've made Spanakopita so many times, it's my go to nibble to bring along when I'm invited to a party. The Michael Symon recipe is really easy. I make it easy still by using two boxes of frozen spinach thawed with the water squeezed out instead of fresh. But The other meatless treat we're having is the first successful batch of homemade pretzels. In this case the Martha Stewart recipe did not work as well as the Alton Brown Pretzel Recipe . His was very simple and quite fun to make. I also loved the episode because he correctly noted that Philly was a city one would travel to purely to get their pretzels. I often gorge myself on them when I'm home. These were not quite as brown as the professional ones, but they were perfectly crusty outside and wonderfully soft and chewy inside. Those we'll make a lot because the recipe was so simple and the yield so nice (8 really big pretzels).

This may make all the lovely aromas of the meats roasting in the oven tolerable. What else AM I making for Easter Sunday?

Stay Tuned!