Marie Cookpad

  I'm not sure about you, but one of our favourite meals in this house has to be a Roast Chicken Dinner with all the trimmings.  Succulent perfectly cooked chicken, crispy roast potatoes, fresh veg and plenty of gravy.  There is not much about a Roast Chicken Dinner I don't like!   I was recently contacted by the people at Hello Fresh and asked would I like to try out and cook one of their recipes in the comfort of my own home.  I think all of us can agree that cooking during this Pandemic has been somewhat of a challenge to say the least.  Its been really hard getting grocery slots and when you get one, you can't be guaranteed that you even get everything you have ordered.  Its been a bit like playing Russian Roulette at best.  There is nothing more annoying than planning on cooking something, and only having half the ingredients that you need to make it show up!  You then have to scramble and think of something else that you can make with w...

  About six months ago I had bought a couple of racks of lamb at Costco, which were marked down for some reason. They looked fine so I brought them home, repackaged them and froze them to use at a later date.  This weekend I thawed one out and roasted it for our Sunday lunch.   It was absolutely beautiful. I can't think why it had been reduced, perhaps the original packaging had been punctured or some such. In any case there was nothing wrong with it at all.   Lamb is not something we ever ate when I was growing up. Mom did try to cook some lamb chops once, but they were not popular with any of us.  I suspect strongly that they were mutton and not lamb as they smelled like she was burning a pair of mittens when she was cooking them!   When mom was in the hospital having my brother (over 60 years ago!) she had remembered having a lamb stew and she always talked about how delicious it was.  Until moving here to the UK, chops that smelt like burnt mittens...

   I totally adore Roast Chicken.  Its not something we had very often when I was a child, but a rare treat. I remember reading a book from the school library called "Chicken Every Sunday." It was a book about a boarding house and the landlady cooked a roast chicken every Sunday.  Ever the foodie I guess, I used to long for a roast chicken in our house every Sunday! The recipe I am sharing today was adapted from the Ina Garten cookbook entitled Cooking For Jeffrey.  I bought my first Ina Garten book back in 2003 when I was hired to cook at the Manor.  I think it was her party one.  I wanted to be able to cook American as the family I worked for was American.  I fell in love with Ina's recipes and style of cookery.   I have gone on to collect about 10 of her cookery books through the years, which is by no means the full extent of what she has published, but I am happy with what I have.  I have somewhat of a cookbook addiction.  (Amon...