DIY -- Basic Cooking V Roast Chicken

I checked out what I would pay for this at the same place as I bought the whole chicken in my freezer.  It almost comes out even, except that the store wants you to feed 8 people on one chicken and it doesn't say what weight the chicken is.  Now, that's not really a bad thing because the meal includes sides, salad and bread so even if each person only gets 1/8 chicken, that's a reasonable meal size unless you insist on making your guests fat.  It costs extra for soup and appetizer and dessert.

Here's the DIY version.
Make your bread in the morning.

Set up your appetizer dish: pickled cucumber, olive, onion, artichoke hearts, and beets.  Optional fish in wine sauce or rolled up slices of hard salami.

Make your dessert while the oven is hot from the bread.

Roast chicken
1 raw chicken, whole, cleaned (giblets might be in it)
1 TBSP parsley
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp tarragon
1/2 tsp chives

Rub or sprinkle outside of chicken with seasonings, place in roaster and put in 450 degree oven.

The same vegetables as last week's meatloaf: 1 small white potato or half a large russet or 1/2 sweet potato per person, 1/2 carrot each (unless you're using sweet potatoes and then substitute 1/2 turnip), 1/2 stalk celery each, mushroom caps.

If you got giblets, then make a roux as I taught you, add the giblets and a slice leek, a bay leaf, a pinch thyme, and a cup and a half water.  Set the burner to 2, cover and let simmer simmer simmer.  Stir once in a while.

When the chicken has been roasting 30 minutes, put in the vegetables, then cover again and put back in the oven.

Make your salad and put in the fridge.

At the 45 minute point, pour 1/2 cup wine or sherry into the roaster and swirl it around to get the drippings off.  This is called "deglazing the pan."  Pour half of this in with your gravy in the saucepan, cover, and keep simmering.

Put the vegetables on a heavy china serving plate.  Take the breast meat off and put on top of the vegetables.  Add the thigh meat.  Leave the skin on the meat to keep it from drying out.  Cover the dish closely with aluminum foil, turn the oven down to 200 and put the dish in it.

Then put the wings, drumsticks and the rest of the carcass, along with the other half of the drippings, in a soup pot with two cups of water, 1/2 tsp black pepper, 1/2 tsp onion powder.  If you want parsley floating in it, add a pinch.  Bring to a boil, then simmer half an hour covered.  This will make a clear soup in which you can float croutons or oyster crackers.  If you want vegetables in it, add the roasted celery and carrot or turnip.

Check your gravy.  If it's too liquid, tilt the lid of the pan a bit, which makes a vent through which the juices will boil off a little.  If it's too thick, add a little water, stir thoroughly, and put the lid on straight.

Now set your table and make sure you put a ceramic plate in the middle for the hot serving plate of chicken and vegetables.  Or else let everybody serve themselves in the kitchen. 
Put the salad and dressing in the middle with the basket of sliced bread next to it and get started. 
Serve the soup piping hot after fifteen minutes. 
Bring out the entree and add a tureen full of the gravy. 
Then serve your dessert.

If you think it's overkill to have both gravy and soup, well, don't serve the soup to your guests.  Serve dinner while the soup simmers instead of waiting for the soup to cook.  You can add noodles, peas, corn, etc. and take this and some of your bread to work for lunch.  It should be at least 3 servings of soup.

This gives you a six-serving five-course dinner, or four courses plus 3 to 4 lunches for work.
© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Fact-Checking the Torah -- Criminal Court Procedure

How did a Jewish court operate to convict somebody of murder, or any of the other capital crimes in Leviticus 20:8-20?

The rules are in Mishnah Damages Sanhedrin.

First, there have to be 23 men chosen as judges.  Right there, that’s a formidable undertaking.  There had to be 120 adult men in a town to be able to pick 23 for judges, according to the Mishnah.  For business dealings, it only takes 3 judges, each party picks one and then those two pick the third, or the two parties have to agree on the third.  But when it comes to possibly taking the life of a Jew, 23 men have to hear the evidence and make the decision.

Once they have questioned the witnesses, the judges get to speak.  The first one to speak is the youngest or least experienced – as long as he speaks for acquittal.  If nobody wants to speak for acquittal, they fast and pray for 24 hours and then see if anybody will speak for acquittal.  If not, the accused is acquitted.

I told somebody that and he thought I must be remembering it in reverse.  However, Mishnah calls that a prejudiced court.  There is absolutely no case so cut and dried that 23 people will agree about it.  You’ve heard of two Jews, three opinions?  Well, among 23 Jews there must be at least two opinions, if they are really using their brains and not just going by knee-jerk reflex. 

So the speaking goes on from the youngest or least-experienced, to the oldest or most-experienced, as long as they all speak for acquittal, and then a count is taken.  If a simple majority, 12 of the 23, have spoken for acquittal, the accused is acquitted.

If 11 of them speak for acquittal and the other 12 have not spoken, the court fasts and prays for 24 hours.  When they re-convene, if any of those 12 who have not spoken yet decide to speak for acquittal, the accused is acquitted, as long as the speaker says something relevant that proves something about the case.

But of those 12, if the only one who wants to speak wants to speak to convict, they hush him up.

At that point, they add two judges who haven’t heard the case before.  If there aren’t enough eligible people in the city, they change the venue to some city where they can convene a court of 25.  This adding of judges, with possible changes of venue, goes on until either the accused is acquitted, or they have changed the venue to Jerusalem with a court of 71.  That is the final court.

All of this illustrates another principle familiar from American law: “It is better to let 99 guilty go free than punish one innocent.”  Especially in the case of the death penalty.

For next week, I want you to read the following:  Deuteronomy 19:16-19.  Meditate on it.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Bit at a time Bible Hebrew -- Vocabulary review II

Vocabulary Review

                                                     

Once again, get really familiar with the words above the line.

 

כִּי	because, for, if, when
טוֹב	good
בֵּין	between, from
לָ	Indirect object preposition, genitive preposition, possessive
יוֹם	day
אֶחָד	one
מִ, מֵ	from, away from, toward
תַּחַת	under
מָקוֹם	place
יַּרְא	manifest
יַּבְדֵּל	divide, separate
חֹשֶׁךְ:	darkness
יִּקְרָא	call (to), call by name, name
לָיְלָה	night
עֶרֶב	evening
בֹקֶר	morning
רָקִיעַ	raqia
בְּתוֹךְ	in the midst of, among
מַבְדִּיל	divide
יַּעַשׂ	make, do
אֲשֶׁר	that, which
מֵעַל	above
כֵן	thus, true
שֵׁנִי	second
יִקָּווּ	gather (3rd s.)
אֶל	to
תֵרָאֶה	appear (3rd f.s.)
יַּבָּשָׁה	dry land

 

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

DIY -- Basic Cooking V Meatloaf

I researched this topic on the web a little and found a place in Chicago that charges $40 for a meatloaf that serves 4-6 people.
Seriously?
DIY you can make a two-pound meatloaf which should serve 5-7 people for no more than $12.
You would only spend $40 on this meal if you bought gourmet sides somewhere or served a really expensive wine and that's not what meatloaf is about.
This will take you two hours including prep time.  If you froze the ground beef, you have to thaw it almost completely.  DO IT SAFELY in the fridge for 3 days.
You need one of those full-size roasting pans but trust me, you will clean it and use it again next week.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees

two pounds ground beef
1/2 cup crushed matso or small bread crumbs
1 egg
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 TBSP onion powder
1 TBSP garlic powder
optional 1 TBSP ground mustard
optional 1/4 tsp cayenne

Beat up the egg and seasonings, then knead with the other ingredients, and shape into a loaf.
Put it in the middle of the roaster and around it, arrange the following vegetables

4-6 roasting potatoes -- NOT in the plastic jackets, those are more expensive and are produced for microwaving
OR three good-sized sweet potatoes cut in half
1/2 sharp onion -- NOT Vidalia
2 carrots halved
2 stalks celery coarsely chopped
6 mushroom caps quartered

Put the lid on the roaster and put in the oven for half an hour.
Open the oven, open the roaster, and paint the top of the loaf thickly with ketchup or tomato paste.
If the vegetables seem to be drying out, pour in half a cup of red wine.
Cover again and roast another half hour.

This will serve dinner.  If you use only two potatoes, then you have a dinner and up to 4 sandwiches.
© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Outdoors -- geese

I went out yesterday to put up the bird feeder, thinking maybe I had disciplined the squirrels enough so that the birds could enjoy it.
We have a new squirrel, a smallish one (I think that means it's female) with an unusually short tail.  She is still learning that encroaching on my yard will get her nothing but wet.
Anyway, I heard a familiar sound and looked up.
The clouds were wearing one of those V-shaped necklaces of geese, and they were honking as usual to encourage each other.
They were flying NORTH.
Two hours later, I saw another string flying in the same direction, quite a ways to the east of where the first flight went.
They were both high up, not low down as if coming in to land and rest at the lake in the center of town.
Spring is near!
© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Fair Isle -- pattern with sparkles

So here is the motif I'm using in my sleeveless pullover.

	X				X				X
			X	X	X	X
		X	X			X	X
	X	X					X	X
X	X			X	X			X	X
	X	X					X	X
		X	X			X	X
			X	X	X	X

The background is off white, the sparkles pale yellow, the middle row chocolate brown, and the rest of the diamond is shades of green. 

The pattern:
Cast on 280 stitches to circular needles, U.S. size 3, with a 24 inch tether, and join.
Work k2/p2 rib for 2 rows in background.
Work k2/p2 rib for 2 rows in chocolate
Work k2/p2 rib for 2 rows in background
Knit 1 round in background.
Start motif for 14 repeats.
On next motif you start to do what is called steeking and I will talk about that next week.  Steeking adds stitches at the armhole.  It lets you continue in the round through to the shoulders.  Then you cut it vertically before adding the sleeve.
In the case of my sleeveless jumper, I will turn it to the inside and tack it down for a facing.
Now that you know WHAT it is, I'll tell you how it works once I've done it. 
Which should be next week.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Garden -- compost

Gone!  It's gone!  The snow all melted yesterday, there are only a few piles of old ice left.
The forecast doesn't show any snow accumulation for the next week.
When I put out the bird food this morning, the breeze was moist and no longer bitter cold as it has been for so very long.
Now is the time to get compost at the garden store for my hardy vegetables.  I'll get enough for the warm-weather veggies too.
I'm going to compete delivery between three companies including the garden store; I think they'll be the highest.
Usually I get ten bags just for the veggies, but some construction was done in November and now that it's over, I have some places where I want to put in flowers.  So I want 15 bags this year.
BTW I'm talking shredded leaves, fully composted.
As Mike McGrath says, no wood mulch, no smelly bark mulch, EVER!
Spring is here at last!
© Patricia Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights. Reserved