Weeknight Drumsticks

We are a family of dark meat eaters when it comes to chicken.  The downside to cooking a whole chicken is that I had to eat the white meat so that the kid could eat all the dark meat.  Annoying.  But hey, parenting ain’t a daily trip to the spa.  With a pack of chicken legs, though, I’d get to have all the dark meat I could possibly devour in one sitting.  Go me!

Dry seasoning blends were my saviour.  I love them so much, in fact, that I started making my own.  But in the meantime, use whatever flavors you like!  If I was serving rice and a hot vegetable, I’d go with lemon pepper.  If I was opening a can of baked beans and boiling (or grilling) up some corn on the cob, I’d go with a bbq rub.  If all I had time for was a quick chopped salad with Italian dressing, I’d use garlic salt on the chicken.  It’s super easy, the possibilities are endless, and the chicken is cheap.

All you have to do is place the chicken on a baking sheet covered in parchment, season all the legs, and bake them.  Dinner is done in half an hour, even if you make rice and or a hot vegetable.  The skin is crispy.  The salad or whatever else you made gets devoured and everyone is happy.  The best part is, you aren’t exhausted.

I haven’t cooked this way in awhile.  In the winter, I have less to do on the farm and so I have more time to spend in the kitchen.  And even now, I have tools I didn’t have previously….like the sous vide wand.  But last night, we were coming off three days and nights with no power.  We had a freak snow storm that downed lines and trees.  We got several inches.  Our generator took a crap and luckily for us, our neighbor plugged our refrigerator into his generator.  Whew!

When the power finally came on last night, I threw some drumsticks into the oven and chopped a salad with what I had on hand.  Which wasn’t much!  I had half a head of iceberg, some celery, a sweet bell pepper, and some buttery olives.  I couldn’t have asked for anything more.  Ok, maybe a shallot. Ok, maybe I had some shallots and I just didn’t feel like getting my hand mandoline out.  There.  Now you know.  Last night I used the garlic salt and some fine ground pepper.

If you’re like me, you keep a small variety of olives on hand in the pantry.  My standards are the spanish queens from Costco and some pitted castelvetranos.  Sometimes I have some marinated artisan varieties and sometimes I have some kalamatas and some stuffed with various things.  The spanish queens are salty and easy.  But by far, the castelvetranos are my favorite.  They just have this lovely buttery flavor I can’t get enough of.  Sorry not sorry to go on this olive tangent, but if you like olives in your salad, I had to mention my love affair with castelvetranos.