Animals that love each other really warm my heart. Nothing makes me happier than watching fuzzballs cuddle.
It’s especially nice when they’re brother and sister fuzz balls.
Muffin, the grey cat, loves kissing her brother, Mango. And he kisses her back too sometimes. They never used to kiss each other when they were younger. Their affection is even more special because reports from the homefront say that Muffin and Greasey, the Halloween cat, have been getting into fights, and Muffin is pulling out Greasey’s hair in tufts!
I decided to make this meal because I had a bunch of vegetables that I just didn’t know what to do with. Exhibit A- a white sweet potato I bought at the farmers market because I’d never seen one before. It’s white. And it tastes exactly like a sweet potato. I also bought a ton of radishes, which were delicious, but I couldn’t figure out how to use them up. I brought one to school as a snack, but a friend came over while I was eating it, and he looked at me like I was insane. I could tell that he was trying to figure out what the heck in the peck I was eating, but he was too polite to ask. Had he known it was a radish, I probably would have lost a friend. So I roasted those too. They were ok. Disturbingly juicy.
To make this delicious and homey meal for yourself, preheat your oven to 400°F. Then, chop up a bunch of vegetables into medium sized chunks and spread them evenly on a baking sheet. As you know, I used white sweet potatoes and radishes. I also used mushrooms, delicata squash, whole garlic cloves with the skin on (take the skin off before you eat it, of course), and onions.
Add some chicken pieces to the top of the vegetables. Season everything with salt, pepper, thyme, rosemary, and cayenne pepper. Yummm! You don’t need any oil, and it will come out perfectly!
Roast the chicken and veggies for 1 hour or until your chicken is cooked through. As I’ve said, mine came out perfectly! Not to brag.
It is just so good. It’s a good idea to serve this meal with some kind of grain. I used Israeli couscous this time because it was all we had. My favorite part about making this kind of chicken is getting to pick the baked on veggies off of the tin foil. It is really amazing how wonderfully flavorful all of this can get without adding a single unhealthy ingredient. Magic. Chicken magic. I know you’ll enjoy this one.
To make this snack, preheat your oven to 375°F. Then, rinse one 15 ounce can of chickpeas and pat them dry.
In a medium-sized bowl, mix together 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, 2 teaspoons of vegetable oil, and 1 tablespoon of sugar. It might not seem like enough, but it’s the perfect amount to coat 1 can of chickpeas.
Add the chickpeas to the mixture, and stir them around with a spatula so they are evenly coated. My bowl was a little too small for this mixing, and chickpeas were flying around the kitchen. Stella pup gobbled them right up. If she approves, you know it’s good!
Spread the chickpeas into a single layer on a baking sheet. Bake them for 35-40 minutes until they are crunchy. You should also toss them around half way through the cooking process so they bake evenly.
While the chickpeas are still hot, add them back into your mixing bowl with 1 tablespoon of honey. Stir them around until they are evenly coated, and then spread them back out on the baking sheet. As the chickpeas cool, the honey should re-solidify and become less sticky. If you taste a pea at this point, you might not be able to stop yourself from eating all of them before they ever get the chance to cool. I warned you!
The chickpeas are cool, you say? Ok, gobble away! I ate all of these delicious morsels at once, and boy are they good. But David never got to even try them. Poor guy, I haven’t done that to him since the