This kitchen is open all night.

The schedule at our house is kind of off to begin with. Kevin works nights doing IT work at an investment bank. He goes in around 2 or 3 p.m., Mon.-Fri. and is supposed to get off at 1 a.m., but usually walks in the door around 2 or 3 a.m. Now, sometimes I cook dinner and sometimes I don't because he get $27 each night to order food and I can just PB&J-it up. He's not always hungry when he gets home but he'll always eat if I made something.

Since starting K. Gourmet, I have been cooking a lot more just in general so that I will have more content for a cooking blog. If I had time stamps on the photos, you would find me cooking food at 11 p.m., 12 a.m., and sometimes 1 in the morning. I'm awake for a normal amount of hours, just not normal times. I'm pretty used to it by now.

Well, last night I decided since it was Friday, I'd make a really good dinner for Kevin.I had put a rack of ribs in the fridge the night before to thaw out. I got them out and started to make my dry rub. I made this dry rub up. It's really simple but, really really good. I'm weird about meat still on the bone (mostly chicken) so I rarely eat every single drop of meat of a bone. Last time I made these I literally licked the bone clean.  There was no meat left for Kevin to finish up. This rub is so good! This rub is proof to me that this is what I should be doing forever. Seriously, I made this rub up!

So here is the recipe:

1 cup light brown sugar
3 tablespoons paprika
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon kosher salt

Mix all spices together. Good for 5-6 lbs. of ribs. Massage 1/2 of rub mixture into the top of ribs. Turn over and do the same with 1/2 of the left over rub. Turn back over and spread on the rest of the mix. Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Let ribs sit for 15 minutes before putting in the oven. After 15 minutes, put the ribs in the oven for 2 hours at 250 degrees. After 2 hours, turn the heat up to 400 degrees. Leave in for another 30 minutes. Remove from oven and let rest for 15 minutes.

In anticipation of Kevin getting home around 1:30, I made the ribs and and let them rest so I'd have them be in the oven by 11:45 and be out by 1:45 and we'd eat, watch T.V. and go to bed. Sounded like a great night. Kevin came home around 1:15, almost as planned. I told him the ribs wouldn't be done until around 2, but didn't they smell good? He looked in the kitchen and asked me if I knew they were still on the stove.
"What?" I asked, looking at him like he was so dumb. "No, I put them in the oven like an hour ago."
"No, you didn't. They're on top of the stove."
I ran into the kitchen and saw the ribs sitting nicely right on top of the stove. Crap. I put them in the oven right away. When I left them to let the rub soak in, I totally for got about them while I was on the computer. The smell was the hot oven slightly heating up the pan they were in from underneath. So, they didn't really get into the oven until 1:20 which meant they didn't finish cooking till 3:50. I guess I could have covered them and put them in the fridge until today, but I didn't think of that.
I had also decided to make mashed potatoes with the rest of our potatoes. I had been this video on my friend's blog and really wanted to try it.

How To Peel a Potato in 10 Seconds on Howcast

It looked pretty easy and it worked really well. It took a little longer than 10 seconds, though. Now here is how I put together my mashed potatoes:

Ingredients:

• 7 peeled & boiled potatoes (Idaho, Russet, New, doesn't matter, this is just what I had in the fridge)
• 1 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 5 Tbsp butter
• Salt &Pepper to taste

I put all ingredients into a bowl at one time and mixed until smooth with my hand mixer. I tasted the potatoes and added salt and pepper until they tasted good. I also don't always use heavy cream. I use what ever I have on hand: Milk, half & half, heavy cream. Sometimes I also put a few tablespoons of sour cream in there.

My family loves mashed potatoes. My mom would often make at least 1 pound of them for Thanksgiving and Christmas. When you're making this much you can add a block of cream cheese in there, too. It makes them very creamy and really good.

Crispy Skin is Good Skin

So about a month ago I bought what I thought was a whole chicken for roasting. Every once in a while my dad liked to roast a chicken and it always turned out really good, so I like to do that every so often. We were cleaning out the freezer and I saw it and put it in the fridge to thaw so I could make it. I took it out last night to make for dinner and it was a whole chicken, but for frying not roasting. This means it wasn't a little chicken turkey it was 4 leg/thighs thing. Oh well, Kevin says I'm an innovator, so we'll go with that.
I decided just to roast it in the oven the same way I was going to roast an entire chicken.

I cut up about 7 potatoes (Kevin said he really wanted potatoes..), 4 stalks of celery, 1 small onion, and threw in a handful of fresh thyme. I used this as a bed for my chicken. I also salted and peppered the "bed" to give it lots of flavor. I also liberally put salt and pepper all over the chicken.

I melted the stick of butter and about 1 cup of honey together in the microwave.  I mixed the two together with my pastry brush and proceeded to baste on that honey goodness. I basted it again after 20 minutes and then 40 minutes later and then the last 15 minutes of roasting.

I preheated the oven to 450 degrees and put the chicken in there for 20 minutes. I did thid so it would get a nice brown, crispy skin. Then I turned the oven down to 350 degrees and finished cooking it for 2 hours.

This is how it looked when finished:

The skin was sooooooo crispy and good! Now, if I had the whole chicken like I thought I would've, the potatoes would still have been a bed under the chicken.  The celery, onion, and thyme would have gone into the chicken's cavity to give it flavor from the inside out. The basting would have been the same. Here is the recipe for what I did:

Ingredients:

• 1 whole chicken
• 5 stalks of celery
• 7 potatoes
• 1 small onion
• handful of thyme
• salt
• pepper
• 1 stick butter
• 1 cup honey

Pre heat your oven to 450 degrees.  Cut up you veggies and lay them evenly in a baking dish. Put about 5 of the thyme sprigs around the top of your chicken "bed" and flavor with salt and pepper. Lay the chicken in the pan so as much of the skin is exposed to the heat as possible. Melt the stick of butter with the honey in the microwave or on the stove. Then baste 1/4 of the mixture on to the chicken. Sprinkle with salt and peeper. Lay the rest of the thyme on the top of the chicken. Put into the oven for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, turn oven down to 350 degrees. Baste chicken again with 1/4 more of the butter-honey mixture. After 40 minutes in the oven, baste again with 1/4 of the butter-honey. In 65 minutes, baste with the rest of the honey-butter. In 15 minutes, remove from oven and let rest 10 minutes before serving.  Enjoy your chicken!