Happenings Around the House

I recently purchased Rhonda Hetzel's book, Down to Earth: A Guide to Simple Living, and love it!  In there she has all sorts of recipes for simple cleaners.  One of them is for silver.

My mother-in-law had given me some silver that belonged to Dan's grandmother and some of the pieces were badly tarnished.  While I love the silver, I was thinking that it wasn't going to be really practical for me to have to scrub it all the time.  I decided to try Rhonda's homemade solution.

It was amazing!  All it took was a piece of aluminum foil in the bottom of a sink, boiling water and a bit of baking soda and salt.  I let the silver sit in this concoction for ten minutes, waited for the chemical reaction to happen and viola!  It was done.

There was no scrubbing and no costly cleaners.

I think I spent most of the day in my kitchen yesterday, preparing dinner.  Every now and then it's nice to go all out.  I made blueberry pie for dessert.

Macaroni and cheese.

And sticky chicken.  I love this because it gets this wonderful, caramelized, crispy coating on the chicken and has a great flavor.

I thought I'd share the recipe here:

Sticky Chicken

Ingredients

• 2 teaspoons salt
• 2 teaspoons paprika
• 1 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 1 teaspoon thyme
• 1 teaspoon white pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 (5 lb) chicken
• 1 cup onion, chopped

Directions

• In large bowl combine all of the spices.
• Remove giblets from chicken, clean cavity and pat the chicken dry.
• Place the chicken in the large bowl with spices.
• Rub the spice mixture into the chicken inside and out, making sure it is evenly distributed and deep into the skin.
• Place chicken in resealable plastic bag (or use your foodsaver).
• Seal and refrigerate overnight.
• When ready to roast the chicken, preheat oven to 250.
• Stuff cavity with onion and place in a shallow baking pan
• Roast uncovered at 250 for 5 hours (cooking time is less if you use a smaller chicken).
• After 2 hours, start basting with the juices in the pan every 30-45 minutes.

Enjoy!

I'm off to grocery shop today.  Exciting times in the Groh household.  lol  Have a great weekend!