nothing to see here, move along...

boy, i really went on a posting rampage the past couple of weeks. that wasn't too bright, because now i've really set myself up for certain failure. the posts will dwindle back off to nothing, and my vast readership (read: 1.5 people in the central ohio region) will not be terribly surprised.

but i haven't done much of note. the plantlings are moving along nicely, getting bigger. i still keep forgetting to call the vet (dammit, i need to do that!). same shit, different day.

although! i invented a new recipe last night, and i was quite pleased. i will share it with you, because that's the kind of friend i am. it all approximations, because i don't measure when i cook. i just cook. i was inspired at the grocery store because i saw fresh blackberries in kind of closer proximity to the fresh sage, and i recalled a lotion i had once called "blackberry sage." it was quite nice.

Roast Chicken with Spicy Blackberry Stuffing
(if spicy isn't your thing, i'm sure it would be fine w/o the peppers)

1 whole chicken, appropriate for roasting
red onion, cut into smallish chunks
whole wheat bread (hot dog buns, stale french bread, whatever), torn into big pieces
fresh jalapeño peppers, cut into small chunks
sage (i used dried, powdered because that's what i had; fresh would be good, just use less)
olive oil
water
salt and pepper, to taste
whole, frozen or fresh, blackberries
flour

preheat oven to 400. find a heavy, metal pan for roasting. don't use glass or ceramic, because gravy making will become a pain in the ass and won't turn out very good.

Stuffing:
- put bread, peppers and onions in a large bowl. i used about 2 cups of bread, 1 cup of onion, 1/4 cup chopped jalapeño for a pretty small chicken. keep a similar ratio based on the size of your chicken, or just do amounts to taste. rough-chop some extra jalapeño and keep off to the side.
- add salt, pepper and sage to taste.
- sprinkle with olive oil and a little water, until moist enough to clump together a little bit.
- mix in a handful of blackberries - don't go overboard, just enough to have one in every bite or so of stuffing...

Chicken:
- remove bag o' innards from the chicken. keep for making stock (yeah, right), feed to the cat, or throw it away.
- jam as much stuffing as you can into the cavity of the chicken. and i mean, JAM it in there good.
- put a little olive oil in the bottom of a heavy pan and place the chicken breast side down into the pan. drizzle with a teensy bit of oil, salt and pepper. i try to cut off as much of the extra skin and chunks of fat as possible, leaving just some skin on the top of the breast and on the tops of the legs.
- roast for a while at 400 degrees, until it starts to look brown.
- flip the chicken breast side up and add the reserved jalapeños to the bottom of the pan with the drippings.
- roast until it is nice and golden-ly dark on top, and when you poke a knife into the leg joint the juice runs clear.
- remove chicken from the pan and place on a cutting board to rest.

Gravy time:
- a healthy person would let the drippings cool, then remove the hardened fat. i usually am pressed for time, so i just buy a nice lean-looking chicken and cut off some skin and fat at the beginning...
- so! put the roasting pan right onto one of your burners, over medium heat. sprinkle in a few tablespoons of flour, and keep stirring while the drippings bubble and cook the flour. (the amount of flour you add will depend on how much drippings you end up with. start with 1 and move up from there.)
- once the flour/drippings mixture looks darker and bubbly, splash in a little water or maybe some white wine if you have it. start scraping all the sticky bits off the bottom of the pan.
- keep adding liquid a little splash at a time, until the gravy is the consistency that you like.
- add a handful of blackberries, and turn down to low heat and simmer for a while.
- taste, and add salt and pepper if it needs it.

Serve:

- slice the breast, carve off the legs and wings, and scrape out the stuffing. don't be alarmed a the sight of dark purple-y wet blackberry chunks in the stuffing. i temporarily forgot that i had put berries in the stuffing, and thought that those were pieces of bloody guts. then i remembered and felt silly. the gross part is (shhh, don't tell) that i actually considered eating it anyway. just for a minute.

- pour the gravy over it all or serve on the side in a fancy little pitcher. ta dum!