Will and Tracy's Budding Life: Recipes from Our Budding Life, Okie-fornia style

Lemons

Lovely

Light

Lemons

Lemons are one of my favorite ingredients to cook with. Lemons and Limes are uber-healthy. One of my first conversations with Will was about my terrible health. He taught me about our body's alkalinity and how cancer, fungus and bacteria can't survive in an alkaline environment. He taught me to test my body pH in my urine and saliva everyday and eat alkaline forming foods but most importantly start everyday with a lime drink that consists of 3 Tbls lime juice and 1/2 tsp baking soda. Let the reaction and fizzing stop and then fill the glass full and drink it down. Drink it before you eat or drink anything and wait 45 minutes before you consume anything. I have a very acidic system and had lots of indigestion until I started this. It refreshes my system and starts my day boosting the alkalinity in my system. Try it and see how you feel.

Ok, I promised my dear friend Mary that I would post some of my favorite recipe's for her to make for her husband Bob who is a bit of a picky-eater. She likes to try anything. I also promised from your input to mix up complicated recipe's with easy one's. That's what you get today, one easy recipe and one more difficult recipe but believe me you can't tell by taste which one is which. Neither of these recipe's are low calorie or low fat but oh my they are delicious.

Today my dearest Jeanie told me that she didn't think she could cook my way. I thought about that and I concluded that cooking is a form of relaxation to me and I learned some stuff in my gourmet classes that I can pass on to you that will make the prep time of cooking more pleasurable. I always cook from my heart and love cooking for others. When I am chopping, smashing, mixing I think about who I am cooking for and think about how something yummy and tasty will bring them pleasure. I love trying a new recipe on Will because he's so good about giving me feedback and it's just the best when I make something that he loves and wants to eat again. It's a culinary adventure of love! I also savor the quiet time alone. Sometimes I listen to music, sometimes I talk to my puppy but having time alone is priceless to me. Everything we can do can be a worshipful experience. I often sing praise songs to God that are stuck in my head very off key while I cook. This week has been Father Abraham, a children's song from our hymnal.

Invest in one good skillet, one good chefs knife, one cheap knife sharpener and one good cutting board. A micro-plane for grating cheese and zesting lemons is nice but you can make it without it. Here are some pictures of my go-to cooking tools that you can get at Kohl's, Target or Walmart.

These are my knives, I use them
all day everyday

my favorite cutting board

Accusharp knife sharpener, $2.00
at my local lumberyard

This I bought at Target but you
can find them also in hardware stores

Lemon Herb Roast Chicken

level of difficulty - easy

Prep time - 15 minutes

Cooking time - 1 hour 20 minutes

This recipe also works wonderfully on Turkey at Thanksgiving time, you only will need to increase the sage and the quantities and cooking time.

It is succulent and highly flavored everytime.

Ingredients

1 whole chicken rinsed and patted dry

Paste

1 stick butter softened

5 sprigs fresh thyme (dried thyme leaves is ok but you will use less because it's stronger) pulled off stem and minced

3 sprigs fresh rosemary (dried rosemary leaves), pulled off stem and minced

5 fresh sage leaves (dried ground sage ok) pulled off stem and minced

1 bunch green onions chopped

1 bunch italian parsley leaves, also called flat-leafed parsley (dried parsley leaves ok)

1 tsp kosher salt

1 tsp pepper

2 whole lemons punctured with fork all around the sides

In a bowl, make a paste with the butter, thyme, rosemary, sage, green onions, parsley, salt and pepper

Gosh this is hard because I am writing this from how I do it in memory. I will have to cook this with this recipe and make adjustments if necessary but I think this is right. I know it's gross but I take a little taste of this herbed butter paste to make sure that it tastes like you want. I like mine to remind me of the best smelling thanksgiving turkey. Be patient with me, remember I don't cook from recipe's but make these up when I cook.

Now the messy part, you have to use your hands, sorry, Dawn dishwashing liquid will get the butter off your hands so press on.

Put your chicken with the breast side up on a cutting board that you use for meats or poultry. Gently slide your hand between the skin and the meat and work your hand back to it's behind and then down the sides and over the thighs and legs. Love your chicken! Once the skin is loose, take little handfuls of the butter paste and work it starting at the back between the skin and meat, keep putting in handfuls of the paste and pat the outside of the skin to make the paste evenly distributed all under the skin. Set your chicken into the roasting pan that you will cook it in, make it a solid pot with a tight fitting lid. Preheat your oven to 400. Salt and Pepper the inside cavity of the chicken with extra salt and pepper and then slide the two punctured lemons inside the cavity of the bird.

Place the chicken pot with lid on in the preheated oven and bake 30 minutes at 400. Lower the oven temp to 375 and take the lid off and cook another 30 to 40 minutes until a fork pierced runs clear and the meat looks like it will fall off the bone. Let rest for 5 minutes after removing from oven and then serve. I serve it with angel hair pasta, recipe below. It's also good served with mashed potatoes.

Italian Flat Leafed Parsley

Rosemary, pull leaves off tough
woody stem

Fresh sage leaves. Use leaf only not
stem

Fresh Thyme, pull tiny leaves off
stem

Lemon Herbed Angel Hair Pasta

level of difficulty - easy

prep time - 5 minutes

cook time - 10 minutes

Ingredients

1lb Angel Hair Pasta - I use whole wheat but you can use regular, cook according to instructions

2 TBLS butter

zest and juice of 1 lemon

1 TBLS finely chopped italian flat leafed parsley

1/2 cup finely grated parmesan cheese

Place the angel hair pasta in the boiling water, cook and drain. While cooking the pasta, use grater or microplane to zest 1 lemon, make sure to avoid the white pithy part of the lemon below the yellow, it's bitter. I buy hunks of parmesan at Walmart, if you felt extravagant you can buy parmesano reggiano but whatever they have in your grocery works as long as it's parmesan. If you want to buy it already grated you can but don't use that dried stuff in the jars that we put on spaghettie our whole lives.

After you drain the pasta put the lemon juice, butter, and parsley in and toss around to coat and melt the butter then add the cheese and you can toss or let it melt into the pasta and then serve. It's so yummy my mouth is watering typing this.