So. My folks keep their fridge on year round so there is always some stuff in the freezer and a smattering of just in case canned goods and seasonings. We generally bring more perishable items, cheese, produce, stuff like that. So I keep looking through all of the things we brought and suggesting things, pasta with roasted veggies? Roasted veggies with rice? Anything with roasted veggies? (We brought a lot of veggies. Well. I brought a dead zucchini that is moldy that I'm pretty sure my mom is going to peel the mold off of and try to make me eat. I DECLINE MOM. I also brought a beautiful not dead zucchini from my friend's mom's garden and a vidalia onion). Now my folks are pretty basic cooks. My dad would be more adventurous but my mom won't let him. She doesn't like cooking so she makes a lot of very simple one pot fare, or they do a lot of meat, plus some veggies = dinner. Or their favorite, a packet of veggies on the grill with the tiniest amount of seasoning. (Almost always potatoes and carrots and onions. I don't really like a cooked carrot except in soup so NOPE) So of course in an effort to troll my mom, my dad is like YES COOK DINNER.
So we agree I will cook outside, over the fire in lieu of the grill, and NOT INSIDE because it's TOO HOT. NEVERMIND that my dad made a delicious and beautiful pie. We will get to his pie in a little bit. So I marinate the chicken ("what do you mean you want to marinate the chicken?!?" "Well, I GUESS, if you HAVE to." "Which bottle of olive oil did you use? The small one or the large one??") (oh sorry, that was some commentary from my mother who never met a complaint she could not not say. She's extra on fire this week. Something must be bugging her or making her anxious but she's really tough to crack and I can't for the life of me figure it out. So it's literally just non-stop complaints/yelling at me and dad). Back to the chicken. I marinated it in olive oil with some salt and pepper and Cajun seasoning, and then cut up half of my pretty zucchini and onion and two little russet potatoes my mom brought (" don't use the big one it's the good one" ???!!?). My dad got the fire going and we Dutch ovened it. I don't know why this picture is sideways nor how to fix it via my phone. (WE WILL FIX IT IN EDITING).
I was splitting these with my dad....
On the fire! This fire was also really sad. We just did charcoal at first then threw that tiny log on it.
All finished! Probably took about...25 min or so...
I threw some Parmesan on mine because it needed a little something extra and the seasoning choices were like, Italian, onion powder, some seasoned salt from 1985, and Cajun seasoning. Hmmmm. Anyways. It came out great. I was really happy with it. The comments from the peanut gallery were as follows:
Why is this so anemic looking?
I guess this is ok.
It's not bad.
WELL THEN A RINGING ENDORSEMENT I WILL TAKE IT.
Now. I brought strawberries with, my mom cut down some rhubarb from the yard and my dad made a beautiful and delicious strawberry rhubarb pie. And he made the crust. And it was basically for me because it's my favorite. He kept apologizing for his crust making ability and I'm like, who keeps telling you your crust sucks? I always love it. Strong side eye over to mom, who apparently DOESNT LIKE CRUST AT ALL (she's basically a pastry heretic) so I told him to zero percent listen to her crazy and just remember that I like it and he's making it for me. Anyways. It was sooooo good. I am always happy about as much home cooked goodness as can be done for a meal. I think was born in the wrong era. Like, it doesn't matter to me at all if I spend upwards of 2 hours cooking for dinner. I sometimes imagine myself a farm wife or something who was basically rolling out biscuits and bread all day. Now I want to bake bread. I'm not getting yelled at though so I'm going to drink my coffee in peace.
This is a not good picture of the pie. I enjoy the clashing of the pie with the plate pattern with the placemat. It's CHRISTMAS OK?
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