Sunday, January 26, 2014

Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic and 6 year old drama

There was nothing overly exciting about today. In fact, it was kind of a mish mosh day where we did a lot but a whole lot of nothing at the same time.  Paul went to play basketball this morning with Mike in a 30 and up league. He had a great time, but was feeling it a little when he got home.  He then proceeded to shovel our driveway and mom's driveway.  He definitely earned whatever calories he consumed today!  I wish I could say I exercised today as well, but I didn't. Instead, I took Austin to a birthday party at Chuck E Cheese and on our way there he told me that I was not to stay at the party with him.  I said okay and was going to use those two hours to shop at Tony's for the very first time and hit up Wal-Mart for some Super Bowl staples. I brought him in, met the mom, gave him a kiss and left.  Tony's Finer Foods was in the same parking lot and I had heard great things about it so I figured it was worth a look. Well, Goodbye Caputo's and Hello Tony's.  It is almost exactly the same as Caputo's but with a few important differences. Tony's carries Boar's Head and it is priced the same if not a little cheaper; the produce is awesome, the bakery looks fabulous; and they have all the ethnic and organic ingredients Paleo requires. What makes it so much better than my Caputo's is that it is so clean and bright and inviting.  My Caputo's is dark and dingy and not very well taken care of.  When I got to the produce section of Tony's, I was confused for a second and thought I was at Mariano's or Whole Foods.  It is set up similarly to those stores and is just as appealing.  I wandered around for a little bit and then stocked up on lunch meat and butcher meats for the week. I also grabbed some perfect looking apples and some other fruits and veggies.  I left there very happy around 11:45 which gave me plenty of time to go to Wal-Mart across the way before picking Austin up at 1:00. I drove across the strip center to Wal-Mart and encountered a grid lock of cars immediately. I drove around for five minutes and there were not any spots to be found.  The parking lot had not been plowed so people were parking like chooches. I decided there was nothing I needed badly enough to go into that store today. I'll go back sometime this week during the day when it is hopefully less crowded. 

Because I couldn't go to Wal-Mart, I went straight to Chuck E Cheese and figured I'd find a booth and play on my phone. It was already 12:15 by the time I got over there.  When I walked in I saw a few of the other Kindergarten moms seated by the party tables, so I went over to sit and talk with them.  I just waved at Austin from afar to let him know I was there.  So as I'm chatting away with the girls, Austin comes over and says, " Mom, why are you here?" I told him that the second store was too crowded so I had nowhere else to go.  I promised to leave him alone.  About 10 minutes later, they started opening gifts basically right next to our table. Austin was standing near me and I saw that his shoe was untied, so I asked if he wanted me to tie it. He put his foot up and let me tie his shoe. About five minutes later, while he was still standing there, Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch came on, and Austin started to bust out some pretty cool dance moves.  I just gave him a thumbs up and said, "good moves, buddy."  He left after presents and ran off to play games with all his buddies while I remained in the booth talking to the moms and that's where I stayed until 1:15 when we left. 

When we got into the car, the first thing he said to me was "why didn't you let me stay by myself?"  I explained to him again that my plans changed, but I told him that it was like he was there himself because I wasn't following him around. He said, " No, but you bothered me twice!  You asked to tie my shoes and you commented on my dancing."  I said I was sorry, and he made me swear that I would drop him off at his other party on Wednesday and not come back until the end.  Umm, he's SIX.  How could I already be such an embarrassment to him?  I am trying not to take offense because I think it is more the fact that he attributes being dropped off with being older and cooler. I get it, but I would rather wait a few more years before he wants me to leave him alone.  But, I do trust him and I know that he is very polite and well behaved at birthday parties, so I will drop him off on Wednesday for the majority of the time. I will have Peyton and Brayden with me, so I wouldn't have stayed anyway. We are going to go to Whole Foods to shop and to a self serve yogurt place while we are waiting to pick him up. The problem is that I really want to go because it is a party for the little girl at school that he tells me almost every day he is going to marry.  She is very sweet and very cute, but I still told him he has to wait 20 years!! Hopefully, some other moms will stay and can give me some dirt on the happenings of the party! 

After I got home and told Paul how badly I embarrassed our son, I started working on dinner. I made chicken with 40 cloves of garlic. I have always wanted to try this recipe, but I was putting off making this recipe because I was not excited to disassemble a chicken. Luckily, Tony's had a whole chicken already cut into pieces, so it cut my prep work in half. I also finally ate my lunch at 1:30 since I hadn't been home since 10:30. I thought about going out to lunch after abandoning Wal-Mart, but I had just spent a ton of money on lunch meat, so I couldn't justify spending money on lunch. In hindsight, I should have spent the money in order to save face with Austin.

Breakfast: Coffee and a banana.  I promise that I will have a real breakfast tomorrow. Paul and Austin are off for the next two days, so we are going to do a big breakfast both mornings to celebrate!

Lunch: Tavern ham roll ups with avocado, romaine, pickle and mustard. 

Dinner: Chicken with 40 cloves of garlic, baked potato and baked beans.  The chicken was very easy to prepare especially since Peyton helped me separate all the garlic from the bulbs. She also counted out all 40 cloves to make sure we had enough. I did not but in the rosemary or the lemon thyme since we have decided that we don't like either of those spices. I was actually really surprised that the chicken didn't taste more garlicky when it was done cooking.  It had a very mild garlic taste but was still delicious.  All the meat was fall off the bone tender and the skin came off very easily.   Austin ate three pieces of chicken; he had two thighs and a drumstick.  Both he and Peyton told me again what a good cooker I was.  I guess this is a meal for the recipe books.
 You have to sauté the garlic first unpeeled. Holy awesome smell, Batman!
The chicken just out of the oven with Austin's pieces missing.  All that at the bottom is delicious garlicky oil that we drizzled on top of our chicken. We also opened up the roasted garlic cloves and slathered them onto our chicken. YUM!!
 
Snacks: a green apple, fruit snacks, and my ice cream-less banana sundae.  SOOOO yummy. I also had two small glasses of my juice spritzers! 
One banana, about 10 dark chocolate chips slightly melted and real whipped cream. OMG!
 
Tomorrow I am going to make homemade tomato soup. One because Peyton and Austin love tomato soup and eat an entire can of Cambells' Condensed soup by themselves every time I make it for them.  And two, it is going to be wickedly cold out and soup always warms you up. This recipe calls for bone broth, so I used the bones from tonight's meal to make the broth. It needs to be in the crockpot for 16-24hrs.  I set it at 10 hours tonight and will have to reset it at 6:00am in the morning for another 8-10 hours.  I am really digging making my own stocks and broth!  The house smells amazing!
 

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