Just Shake and Bake It Drumsticks

Literally!!! Dinner is served in 45 minutes with only 5 minutes of which  you are actually doing the work. And the best part is that everyone loves them. Now that’s my kind of dinner!

Just Shake and Bake It Drumsticks ~ serves 5

10 chicken drumsticks
1 C corn flake crumbs
2 - 3 Tbsp seasoning **(your choice)

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with foil and set aside.

2. Put corn flake crumbs and seasoning in plastic baggie and toss contents lightly.

3. Rinse chicken drumsticks.

4. Place one drumstick into crumb mixture and shake until coated. Place on baking sheet. Repeat with remaining drumsticks.

5. Place baking sheet into oven and bake until juices run clear at thickest part of drumstick, about 40 minutes. In the meantime, you can prepare your side dishes.

** My favorite seasoning is lemon pepper. Some other seasoning suggestions are Italian seasoning, Montreal Chicken Spice, Garlic Plus, dried herbs (stick to 1 - 2 Tbsp). Just use any seasoning that you have on hand or that you think would go well with chicken. The picture below was really cheating:  because I had some Shake and Bake mix sitting in the cupboard for over 6 months I decided to mix in 1 pouch Shake and Bake seasoning with 1/2 C corn flake crumbs.

Leftovers Galore!

We had a lot of leftovers from the turkey dinner: bacon, rice, and, of course, turkey. I also had some fresh pineapple chunks and lettuce sitting in the fridge for a few days and wanted to use them up. I decided on making fried rice, Hawaiian-inspired.

Leftover Turkey Fried Rice, Hawaiian-inspired

4 eggs, lightly beaten with a fork and seasoned with a pinch of salt
4-5 C cooked rice, preferably from the night before (it makes for a less mushy and sticky fried rice)
1 C turkey, cubed or sliced
6-8 slices bacon, trimmed of excess fat and fully cooked and crumbled(I cooked mine in the microwave and used a paper towel to absorb the extra grease)
1/2 can of pineapple chunks (I used fresh)
1/3 head of lettuce, sliced in thin pieces
1-2 Tbsp soy sauce

1. Preheat a large non-stick skillet on medium heat. Spray with canola oil. Pour half the egg mixture into pan to make an egg pancake. When bottom is lightly browned, flip over. Once cooked, remove from pan and place on chopping board and cut into thin slices. Reserve the remaining egg mixture for later.

2. Spray the pan with canola oil and fry the rice (to warm it up). Season the rice with soy sauce to taste and add the remaining egg mixture to coat rice. Add turkey to pan and warm through. Add pineapple chunks. Once warm, add bacon, lettuce and sliced egg pancake. Season, if needed. If it isn't salty enough, add salt or fish sauce to taste.

Serve hot. Makes 4 servings.

Need Freezer Space and a little more

When we renovated our kitchen a year and a half ago we bought another fridge and put the older fridge in the basement. We decided that it was also time to dispose of our deep freezer because always had a lot of frost build-up and the foods were getting freezer burned. We figured we could do without a deep freezer and just live on the freezers in the fridge. Well, now I regret our decision of not having a deep freezer (well, tossing out the old deep freezer was a wise idea since it was not energy efficient and not doing its proper job in freezing our meats). I want to get another deep freezer because we have maxed out the space in the two fridge freezers and can't take advantage of any deals on meats or stock up on BBQ meats and burgers for the summer.

A couple of weeks ago there was a great deal on some beef short ribs, pork side ribs and some other meats. I knew we didn't have any space in the freezer but I couldn't resist a great deal. What's a girl to do? I knew I had to make room in the freezer. Then it hit me! I had a turkey in one of them. What a great way to make space. I took the turkey out and I instantly freed up 1/4 of the freezer. I put it in the fridge to defrost. It took over a week to defrost (thank goodness). Even as I cut off the packaging I noticed small chunks of ice in the cavity of the bird.

This is how I prepared the turkey. I took out the giblets and neck (I threw them out even though I could have used them to make a yummy gravy). I scrubbed it with sea salt and rinsed it under cool water. I thought to myself, what kind of stuffing should I throw into my bird? I brainstormed quickly and decided on a "everything but the kitchen sink" stuffing, thus freeing up more fridge space. A lemon, a bunch of parsley, garlic, celery and carrots. It keeps the turkey meat nice and moist with a hint of flavour from the stuffing ingredients (I learned this from The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook). I sprinkled seasoning salt, steak spice and a Tuscan spice blend (from The Eat-Clean Diet Cookbook: Great-Tasting Recipes That Keep You Lean). I then placed uncooked slices of bacon over the bacon (a little trick a friend told me 15 years ago).











This is how the turkey looked going into the oven (preheated at 350 degrees F):

And this is how it looked after 2.5 hours:

Remove and discard the bacon (my mom gobbles them up). I mixed the pan drippings, fat separated, with the gravy mix. The mix I use is the Nestle TRIO brown gravy mix - the best I've tried so far.

Hubby's rating: He doesn't like turkey but this time he raved at how tasty and moist it turned out.

Cook's rating: (that's me!) Delicious.