Trendy Owls

I'm not sure when this everything-owl craze started, but I certainly didn't wait even a minute to jump on board.  After all, there are clearly only three animals that can be truly defined as cute.  

1. Pigs; naturally.  

2. Elephants; the baby elephant in The Jungle Book?  Exactly.

And lastly, thanks not only to current trends, but also their natural wide-eyed adorable nature, 

3. Owls

When I saw these plates on Amazon.com, I knew they needed to be mine.

I could drop probably $300 a day on any random assortment of kitchen items and cookbooks I find while searching through Amazon.  Since I know that about myself, these went onto my wishlist.

Like a few other random items that have sat on my list for quite some time, I thought for sure that they had become unavailable and that I would have to accept the fate of living life without them.

Then Christmas morning came and my awesome SIL, Sam, gifted them to me.

And all was right in the world.

Now here is the sadness that I must relay to you.  They are sold out everywhere now:
Tag
Amazon

The good news is, Tag still has a cute owl cookie jar available.  I think I'll add it to my Amazon wishlist... along with about a dozen other owl related items.

By the way, these little owl salt and pepper shakers were from my brother.  He didn't even know about the owl dishes.  I'd say it's fate, wouldn't you?

The Bottom of the Champagne Bottle

Recipe: Cornish Game Hens with Garlic and Rosemary
Source: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/cornish-game-hens-with-garlic-and-rosemary/
Time: 1 and 1/2 hours
Ease: 3
Taste: 4
Leftover Value: No Leftovers!
Down the Drain or Keep in the Strainer: Down the Drain!

Sometime before Christmas, and of course you realize I say 'sometime' because said time could be as far back as Halloween, my hubby said he'd like me to make Cornish Hens 'sometime' for dinner.  After purchasing the hens, tossing them in the freezer, and completely forgetting about them they came back to memory when I still had leftover champagne that I wanted to serve a greater purpose in its lifetime.

Instead of shopping around for good recipes involving Cornish hens and champagne, I went for the first one I found.  Although it was mostly ease of finding the recipe that really made me use it, another thing that drew me to it was the fact that I had most of the ingredients already on hand.  

Two out of these three ingredients I love.  One of these I hate.

Let's see....

Olive oil is a necessary part of life.  No discussion needed.

When lemon is squeezed in a free glass of water at a restaurant it saves you the obnoxious $2-$5 charge for a soft drink.  It's also a nice flavor to mix with Italian seasonings and spread over chicken (more on that later). It could possibly even be included in the essentials of life with olive oil.  I'll get back to you on that after proper consideration.

That leaves rosemary.  I have never, ever been a fan.  I'm sure this is due to my first encounter with it.  I had ordered a delicious sounding pesto chicken sandwich at a restaurant that I love.  As I bit into the sandwich, I landed on a stick like object and was flooded with an overpowering taste that will haunt me to the end of my days.  

I soon discovered that a sprig of rosemary had been placed in the sandwich (As extra flavor?  As a garnish?  I'm not sure...) and the eater was supposed to foresee this and remove it before eating. 

That is, unless people actually eat rosemary springs whole.  

I really hope that is not the case.

After finally removing the spring, I tried to enjoy the rest of the sandwich, yet the flavor of rosemary remained strong throughout.  I had to order some chocolate cake to console myself.  

With that all said, you may wonder why I chose a recipe using rosemary.  I thought that it might be time to make friends with rosemary again, especially since it seems that in my dislike of rosemary I am the minority.

And...the recipe said to stuff the lemon and rosemary inside of the hens.  For some reason, that seemed like a step bound to make the hens taste delicious.

The recipe also included garlic, which I figured would make up for the rosemary.  

Of course, I forgot to put in the pan until the hens had already roasted about 20 minutes and it was time to pour the champagne on top.  

My hope was that the hens would emerge from the oven resembling and tasting like miniature Thanksgiving turkeys.  I hoped the meat would peel off the bone and I would sink my teeth into a juicy piece and instantly be sitting at my parents' kitchen table on the fourth Thursday of November. 

It didn't happen.

And I was mightily disappointed.

In all fairness, it wasn't a horrible meal.  It just did not meet my expectations.  The hens could have gone a little longer so that the skin could crisp more.

The good thing was that rosemary treated me well and didn't overpower what flavor the meat did give off.  I'll more than likely give it and Cornish hens one more try in my kitchen.

What to Do With Leftover Champagne

As you might know from my recent post about my Christmas, we decided to ring the New Year in with a little champagnia.

Say it: Sh-am-pan-e-ya.  Feels a little more sophisticated, wouldn't you say?

I know, I'm strange.  But secretly you know you'll say it like that from now on.

And as nice as it was to enjoy a little champagne in my wedding flute for the first time since my wedding, there was still plenty leftover as the day slipped from the celebratory first of January to the mundane, back to work, second of January.

I had no other alternative but to discover recipes where I could put my leftover juice to good use.

Recipe: Champagne Chicken
Source: http://www.food.com/recipe/champagne-chicken-187370
Time: 30 minutes (or longer if you cook while paying bills and waiting for your hubby to get home)
Ease: 1
Taste: 6
Leftover Value: No leftovers!
Down the Drain or Keep it in the Strainer: Keep it in the Strainer!

This recipe falls into the category of things I'd like to try again, but more than likely won't.  Which is why I rated it as a Keep in the Strainer item.  The only reason I probably won't make it again is that hubby wasn't thrilled with it.  But, I have to give the disclaimer that hubby doesn't really like any chicken and cream sauce meals.  This one was not an exception.

I did make a few adjustments, only one of which I know effected the sauce greatly.

I realized the morning of the day I planned to make this (that would be boring, mundane, January 2nd) that I didn't have any heavy cream.  In fact, I realized that I had just recently thrown out the remaining dregs I did have of heavy cream when I cleaned the fridge out of items with questionable expiration dates.  (Trust me, you do not want to know what that means to me in my world).  

Note how the sauce looks rather watery in the above picture.  This is due to the fact that I substituted half and half bought at the grocery store down the street from me since they failed to have any heavy cream in stock.  The flavor was still good, yet it lacked the thickness that this sauce clearly should have.

Second, the recipe called for six tablespoons of lemon juice.  That's a lot of lemon juice!  

For fear that it would taste completely like lemon with chicken instead of champagne chicken with a hint of lemon, I used roughly four tablespoons of lemon juice.  To my surprise, the lemon was not overpowering, and next time I would try it with the recommended amount. 

It wasn't until I had chopped up potatoes to bake as a side dish that I realized the recipe suggested serving the chicken with rice, wild rice, or spinach fettuccine.  I was a little sad because those suggestions all seemed perfect.

But then I bit into my perfect roasted potatoes and all was right in the world.

Up next: Day Two of Leftover Champagne: Cornish Hens