The Baked Chicken

From Sally's Blog-A Warm Conversation

Ok, so let me premise this story by saying that I consider myself to be a pretty good cook. I usually don't follow recipes unless I am making something special, I just get what I have and make something work. Wednesday night was a completely different story. What I made was very good but it was another Sally moment that ruined the meal. I was either going to fast or pulled another blonde-y...

So the setting was Wednesday afternoon, I had defrosted a whole chicken and was ready to pop it in the oven. Wait, lets back up a year or two...back in the mid 2000's while living on Trojan Avenue with my twin sista. I learned a valuable lesson back then, don't buy any kind of whole chicken OTHER THAN Foster Farms chicken. My sister once bought a generic brand whole chicken from Food-4-Less and it was practically a meat-less chicken, all bone. It was like the poor thing had been starved, well maybe that's an exaggeration but it was seriously lacking in hearty helpings of meat. Okay fast forward to early last week...I am walking through Albertsons picking up some groceries and see that they have whole chickens for $5.00. Now at this point the "sister" story is ringing in my head but how can I possibly pass up a $5.00 whole chicken? Exactly, I can't! Into the cart the chicken goes and then into the freezer when I get home. Okay so now we are back at Wednesday afternoon...so I defrost the chicken overnight and then I season it (lathered in butter and then sprinkled with lawrys garlic salt, kosher salt and pepper), put it in my Pampered Chef covered baker, add a few potatoes and carrots, a little water at the bottom and then pop it in the oven. About two hours later I pull it out and it looks heavenly, perfectly golden brown, smells delicious, just perfect...SO I THOUGHT.

Yeah, so I start to cut into the gorgeous chicken and my mouth is watering (I have already pulled off a piece of skin and it was very tasty) and what do I feel...BONE. "Its true!" I think to myself, "you buy a cheap chicken and you get a cheap chicken", there was no meat, all I felt was rib cage. Ha, ha oh well right? Miah comes in laughs as well and we pull what we can off the bones and eat, it tasted really good either way.

So by this time you are thinking, "Okay, why is this such a great story? Where is the "Sally moment?", it's coming. So we go off to Bible class, then to my parents house to visit with my mom and then we come home. The anorexic chicken is still sitting in the baker on the oven so I start to pull all the meat off that I can so that I can possibly make chicken salad for lunch the next day. I pull the chicken out of the baker and turn it over and Voila, the missing meat!!! Yes folks I had the stupid thing upside down the entire time and when I cut into the "breast" and felt only rib cage, its because the breast was on the bottom hiding from me!!! There it is, the Sally moment. I laughed and laughed because how could I mistake the bottom of a chicken for the top?!?!?! Needless to say I made a ton of chicken salad that I am still eating. So lesson learned, check which side you are facing up before placing in the dish. I am telling you though, I am not an inexperienced cook, I HAVE made baked chicken before. It was all very funny and I hope I am not alone in making some of these mistakes :). I am going to add this one to my pool of the "Semi-House Wife Tales".

Oh and about the weeping holes...I found them!!! Who ever installed the windows covered them up with the casing that was holding the windows in. I removed the bottom piece and the water POURED out of the window sills. Now we just need to replace the bottom casing with a thinner piece and we will have perfectly functioning weeping holes.