Whole Roasted Chicken

I told my hubby during X-mas that I was nervous about cooking a Turkey because I had no experience and only had a vague idea what to do. So a couple days ago he comes home toting a whole chicken!

He had decided that the best way to practice for next Thanksgiving was to start small... So we had chicken for dinner.

I didn't look for instructions other than temperature but remembered some of what I had heard on Food Network during the Holiday Season. So I put a little butter under the skin, put aromatics (onions, carrots, celery) inside the bird, and covered the top with lemon rub, salt, and pepper.

I love the color it turned! It was moist and tasted soooo wonderful. I will definitely be trying this again.

Lesson: Never be afraid to try to make something.

Sweet Cherry Pie

After making pies with my mom for X-mas and Thanksgiving, I am ready to try my hand at making pies on my own! Mom gave me her pie crust receipt and after searching through some cookbooks, I settled on a cherry pie.

This is an odd hobby for me to pick up because I don't really like pie... but I have found that I like making them, and even more, I like watching people eat my creations.

The crust is the hardest part to make. I threw out my first attempt because it would just not do what I wanted it to do, but the second attempt went much better. Well enough that I was ambitious and tried out the lattice work on the top crust (I would not recommend that, it was hard! I think I will wait until I have much more experience before I try it again).

Overall, I think it was a very good first attempt and everyone seemed to enjoy.