Home-Made Food is the Best!

We’re back from vacation in sunny California. San Diego and Los Angeles, to be more precise. They are blessed with warm sunny weather in the winter, but you just wait until spring and summer come back to Microsoft-land and you’ll see that it is the most beautiful place to be when a lot of people are sweating somewhere else on the planet.

When we returned we have found that our street no longer looks like this



Or this – my feet in our driveway



Or this – sliding at the elementary school backyard




But some of my herbs didn’t make through the 2 weeks and 15-20 inches of snow this year. This is what my rosemary looked like a few weeks ago (see Backyard Vegetable Garden)


And this is how it looks now. It is 9 am and still pretty dark outside. Looks like I will need to buy a new plant.

So, we’re back home and I was planning to use some fresh herbs in the chicken I was about to roast. Plans have changed. I should have taken a pick at the backyard before I went grocery shopping. But good things can come out of bad ones, right?! The chicken I ended up making turned out so tasty, minimalistic, homey, simple, and just yumyummy.

After eating out a few times each day (see my post on 11 Tips for Eating Out (with Kids) While on Vacation. I need to write an “after” post on how we did…), I can tell you for sure – Home-Made Food is the Best! The things you eat while on vacation: theme park/amusement park junk food; eggs, bacon, and hash every morning? – I don’t think so; pizza in the car while driving to a remote destination…

We did have an excellent dinner at Roy’s restaurant where we ordered and shared (well, not the picky kindergartener, but mom, dad, and baby):

Lakanilau Roll – Seared Kobe Beef Wrapped Around Dynamite Crab, Tempura Asparagus & Avocado
Roy’s Canoe Appetizer for Two – Chilled Tropical Shrimp Cocktail, Szechwan Spiced Baby Back Ribs, Lobster Potstickers, Ahi Sushi Roll
Roasted Corn & Sweet Potato Chowder
Melting Hot Chocolate Soufflé and Upside Down Pineapple Cake

I’ll tell ya, it was hard to choose from the magnificent menu.

But, there’s no place like home,and – I say – there’s nothing better than good home-made food. This is the kind of dish that makes you want to lick the bottom of the pan and/or grab a loaf of fresh bread and use it to “clean” the pan.


Roasted Delicately-Lemony Chicken

Serves 6

A few drizzles of extra virgin olive oil
1 big juicy lemon, zested and juiced
Salt
Black pepper, ground
3 garlic cloves, chopped
4-6 whole chicken legs
* 1 lemon, cut to thin slices

Place all the ingredients, besides the sliced lemon, in an oven safe dish. Shmootz/rub/massage everything together. Marinate for at least an hour (and I think you can do this up to overnight as well).
* Before roasting, place sliced lemon on top of each leg.
Roast in a 375 F degrees oven for 60 minutes. (If chicken browns too quickly and there’s still plenty of cooking time left, lower the temperature to 350 F.)
Don’t forget to eat the crispy roasted lemon slices! They taste so good.