Monday Mish Mash and A Recipe

This weekend was exactly what I had hoped it would be. On Friday I had a clean slate for the weekend, nothing specific to accomplish, nowhere that I had to be, no appointments. And miracle of miracles it actually stayed that way. And I took full advantage. I was lazier than lazy, really accomplishing no more than a quick vacuum and a load or two of laundry.

It snowed, again, on Saturday and I literally holed up in the house in the house with a book and the coffee pot. I finished one book and started on another. I only went out for a quick trip to the bank and then I shovelled the drive and called that my workout that day.

Sunday it was just me and my son 17) for church as hubby and my youngest (15) were both not feeling well. And that was pretty much the only time I left the house that day. I even had a nap on Sunday which for me is simply unheard of. Afterwards I remembered why I don't nap. I'm not the type that can catch a quick 20 minutes. Three hours later I woke sluggish and heavy headed and then I didn't sleep well at night.

One nice thing on Sunday that I discovered was not really cooking lunch. Unless you call throwing on a pot of rice and a pot of vegetables cooking. I'm usually always running around like a chicken with my head cut off after church on Sunday trying to put together a nice Sunday meal. And while I love to cook, it is quite rushed on Sunday because everybody is starving by the time we get home from chuch. But in my head, when I was growing up, Sundays were for nice family dinners. I transferred that over to my grown up life even though sometimes it is a really difficult task to accomplish. Sundays is where my crockpot gets lots of use, but then again, I'm trying to get everything together to throw in the crock while trying to get ready for church. But this weekend I did something different. I tried a new recipe on Saturday only to have Son working and Hubby not wanting to eat. So rather than just me and Youngest eating a nice dinner I put it away for Sunday and threw a frozen pizza in for us. Voila. A nice Sunday dinner without the stress.

And boy was it good. I tried something new and it's definitely a keeper in the Living to Tell household. It was easy, fairly quick and darn tasty. So I'm gonna be nice and share. The original recipe I got from here but I'll write it out with my tweaks.

HONEY BAKED CHICKEN

-3 lbs chicken pieces (I used legs with back attached)
-1/2 cup butter, melted (real butter makes it better but you can use marg)
-1/2 cup honey
-1/4 cup prepared mustard
-1 tsp salt
-1 tsp curry powder
-1 - 2 tsp. cornstarch

Preheat oven to 350*F (175*C).

Rinse chicken and pat dry. Trim any excess fat pieces. Place skin side up into a 13x9 baking pan.

Combine melted butter, honey, mustard, salt and curry. Pour over chicken. Bake uncovered basting with pan juices every 15 minutes for 60 - 70 minutes until juices run clear.

When done remove chicken to plate and cover to keep warm. Skim pan juices to remove as much fat as possible and transfer to small pot. Whisk cornstarch in and heat to boiling. Simmer one minute and serve some on the chicken and some for gravy.

Notes:
-this was just as good the next day when I served it reheated from the oven and it only took 15 - 20 min. to reheat at 350*F. Just enough time to make the rice and veggies. I basted a couple more times with the juices before I added the cornstarch to them just to keep everything moist.
-the excess fat was very easy to remove off the top the next day as it becomes solid.

Yummy!