Adventures in cooking
First off, we don't have any buttermilk. Okay, I can adapt. Milk and vinegar does the trick. I take the chicken out last night to thaw. Except it sorta doesn't. Then I thought Niece 1.0 was going to be here, so I take out another piece. What the heck, it's gotta sit in the sorta-buttermilk brine for six hours, it'll thaw a little.
(Pitch the watermelon, pitch the potatoes, send a text to my sister to being home potatoes.)
The sorta buttermilk takes two cups, we've only got one gallon. I need a batter recipe that doesn't need milk. Okay, beer batter. There's only one bottle of Coors in the fridge. Okay, there's three bottles in the garage fridge. And there's poultry gravy mix in the cupboard that only needs 1/4-cup of milk.
(The chicken still isn't thawing. Actually the sorta buttermilk is freezing onto the chicken. And now Niece 1.0 won't be here, she's going to Daddy's, I've thawed [Ha. Ha.] more chicken than I need.)
Beer batter needs baking powder. We don't have any. Save me, Google-fu, you're my only hope! Okay, 1/4-tsp of baking soda and 1/2-tsp of vinegar will fix this.
Finally, potatoes! Slice, slice, slice, olive oil and bourbon brown sugar seasoning. Go sit in the fridge for a while.
Chicken still semi-frozen, zap it in the microwave.
Oh great, burner's smoking under the chicken, vent on under the old microwave, stand-up fan on, windows and doors open, turn down burner. Batter's not sticking to chicken like I've anticipated.
Potatoes in the oven. Twenty minutes not done yet. Twenty minutes more.
The gravy won't thicken.
The gravy won't thicken.
The gravy won't thicken.
Thicker pieces of chicken aren't done, back to the microwave. At least the potatoes came out finally.
NOW the gravy tightens up! Veggies ... Fine, canned peas it is.
Fortunately, I'm not playing to French food critics.