Cooking drumsticks is a great weeknight dinner option—especially if your wife has set them out and thawed for you when you get home (thanks, Babe!) They're cheaper, and better tasting than chicken breasts (more fat, more flavour every time) and they're almost impossible to overcook and dry out like chicken breasts usually end up being. That makes drumsticks (and thighs) perfect for nights when you might not want to attend to every dish all evening.
Of course, you can shake 'n bake, but really, it's mostly a gloppy mess for not much of an increase in flavour in my books. A quick toss in olive oil with a generous salting and some pepper will get you all the flavour you need. I also found some baby potatoes and those baby carrots and an onion to add and pretty much threw them all in the oven on a baking sheet for an hour at 350. I'll flip them halfway through, but even that's probably unnecessary.
Though you could certainly eat it straight like this, I suddenly thought about making a bit of a french-style (I think) sauce. So I threw the whole works in a pan with a little butter, a few fresh herbs (thyme) and gave everything a bit of browning. With the pan nice and hot I decided to add some cream, but on the way found some leftover white wine. Not that I want to advocate "cooking with sin" as my Mennonite Grandma once scolded her daughter (the full story on that quote is on my cousin's blog).The wine gives "a bit of acidity' as they say on cooking shows and the cream is awesome because it's just, well, cream. I let the liquids reduce somewhat to form more of a saucy consistency and served it up.
You've gotta love the kids' enthusiasm at the end of the video!
Nice finishing touches (how lucky to live where fresh thyme is available in the backyard all winter!). The basics were my mother's (and the family's) favourite Sunday dinner - she threw it all in a Dutch oven at a lower heat and it was ready when we came home from church.
ReplyDeleteThis looks tasty. It must be hard, cooking for kids night after night. Do you ever get them to give you ideas and help out, or is that a fruitless pursuit?
ReplyDeleteWell, not always fruitless—in fact, sometimes too fruitful. If you open the floodgates to ideas, but can't deliver for reasons of time (I want a turkey dinner), cost (why don't we have steak every night?) or health (Waffles!) you can just end up with another fight on your hands. I do take the kids' suggestions, but I would probably pick reasonable options ahead of time and just ask them to choose one.
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