I roasted a chicken, made mashed potatoes for the first time (!) and baked amazing scones…

Remember how I did not go to the grocery store on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday? (and for the record the only thing I bought on Monday was 6 ounces of wild salmon – so that does not really count, right? Kidding. Sort of.)

Well, I went to the market on Friday (twice. Whole Foods for my Free Ranged chicken, and 1% milk from the local dairy) and Trader Joe’s for some staples and things that my mom requested. On Saturday I went back to the market for some fresh produce – radish, red pepper, an ounce or two of fresh mixed greens, a lemon, thyme, and puff pastry for Tuesday night.

So. On Saturday afternoon my great friend Katherine came down to Providence to visit. I had some great food for her. I made radish toasts (a French classic) and we snacked on nuts & dried fruit, veggie sticks and an amazing peppered boursin cheese my mom found at East Side Market.

I roasted a chicken using Thomas Keller’s instructions at the beginning of Bouchon. Katherine and I had a lot of fun looking through the two Keller cookbooks I have (ad hoc at home being the other). Both books are totally beautiful. Our chicken was amazing.

I made a salad with a lot of vegetables and I made my own vinaigrette dressing glancing at a recipe from Cook’s Illustrated. Red wine vinegar, a small amount of mayonnaise, dijon mustard, salt, pepper, and then olive oil which you have to whisk while you add it in to the other ingredients.

I have to admit – I was a little stressed with the chicken so I did not take any pictures while I was cooking 😦 But now that I have done one roast chicken, I’ll be able to do photographs next time. The bird was seriously beautiful when it came out of our oven.

Can you believe that I have never made mashed potatoes? I have to say, I was nervous to make them but they were not difficult to make. I bought three organic potatoes, which cost me $1.51 – I could not believe the potatoes was so cheap! I have read a lot of articles saying that eating organic when it comes to potatoes (and apples) is actually sort of important. You do not want the chemicals in your potatoes.

So, I peeled potatoes. I cubed them up. I put them in a pot of water (we added a small pinch of salt to the water) and brought the water up to a boil. Katherine and I cooked the potatoes for a while, then when they were cooked through we drained them, put them back in the pot, added a bit of butter (2 tablespoons maybe?) and a bit of 1% milk. We then used our hand mixer to mash them… and then we added a bit more milk. No salt. No pepper. People could season their own potatoes, we decided.

Dinner was finally ready. I still cannot believe that I roasted a chicken and it was really good! Here is what my plate looked like last night:

This afternoon I decided to bake scones. I followed a recipe from Homemade Life. I love this recipe for lemon and ginger scones.

Prep time:

Can I just tell you how much I love lemon zest!? Love it. The diced ginger is on the green cutting board. Yum.

I worked with the dough, which was not as bad as I thought it would be… it made a lovely circle.

I cut the scones into eight pieces.

Baked at 425 degrees for about eleven and a half minutes. Then Katherine and I split and enjoyed a scone together 🙂

I love these scones.

I have to start thinking about dinner now. I am making a salad with chicken and vegetables. I hope you are having a lovely weekend…