{High-Five worthy Dinner}

I am so excited about the super easy-little ingredients- little work- but tasty dinner I made last night. I am trying to find basic recipes, meaning non-processed foods, just  meats, veggies, and fruits, since my son is allergic to corn, dairy, nuts, eggs and bananas so far. We need to keep it basic and let me tell ya reading the labels will make you crazy. The corn allergy is a new one to us and we already avoided eggs and nuts b/c of the high possibility of it. But having already eliminated dairy, and then adding corn to the list really limited our pre-packaged food choices. Do you know how much corn is in products; corn flour, corn starch, high fructose corn syrup, corn oil, and the list goes on. It was actually worse than the dairy. Do a search for a corn allergen list to see it. WOW. So we are going to just keep it basic at our house so we know what we are giving him and don't have to worry about the 4 year old sharing her food.

Last nights dinner was found by doing a search for easy chicken leg recipes. Yep that was all, and then picking one that sounded yummy, got good reviews, was really a no-fail (according to the author), and was simple to make (ingredients and time). So this one sounded yummy, and boy let me tell you, it WAS!


I did not save the link, and am sorry to say I didn't take pictures. I was not expecting it to be as much of a hit as it was.

Crispy Rosemary Chicken and Fries

Prep time 15 Min
Cook time 1 Hr
Ready in 1 Hr 15 Min
This is a one pan meal that's in the oven in 15 minutes. * did not have fresh herbs so used dried. Rosemary(didn't have any used basil instead), garlic, and oregano create a mouth watering aroma.  Potatoes are crispy like french fries, just serve with ketchup. Kids just love this! (we had sweet potatoes on hand so used those)
Ingredients
6 chicken legs
3 small red potatoes, quartered ( substituted 2 sweet potatoes)
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil, or as needed
1-1/2 teaspoons chopped fresh rosemary (used dried basil)
3/4 teaspoon chopped fresh oregano (used dried)
3/4 teaspoon garlic powder (used garlic salt)
salt and pepper to taste

Directions
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
Place chicken and potatoes into a large bowl. Pour olive oil over them, and stir to coat. Scatter the chicken and potato pieces in a large baking dish, or cookie sheet with sides. Sprinkle with rosemary, oregano, garlic powder, salt and pepper.
Bake for 1 hour in the preheated oven, uncovered. Baste during the last 15 minutes for extra crispness.

I did a quick google search for a few pictures that would show you what the food looked like and these are pretty darn close.

Really totally that was it. Hubby cut up the sweet potatoes for me, we used 2 cookie sheets cause we knew we would all love the sweet potatos and did more. We put everything- the sliced sweet potatoes and chicken legs in a large metal bowl and then drizzled a lot of olive oil over it and hand tossed for a good coverage. Then we took the chicken out and placed on the cookie sheets- I did not grease the cookie sheets b/c of all the oil that was used. The seasonings were sprinkled over the chicken but put in the bowl for the chips and tossed together. Then the chips were added to the space left on the chicken cookie sheet and the rest put on the 2nd cookie sheet.

We put them in the oven, set the timer and relaxed. Hubby was surprised it was so simple. Me too. I washed my hands off b/c of the oil and raw chicken, cleaned up the kitchen, and set the table. Oh and B-T-dubs (sorry that means BTW, or by the way, I just had to steal it from Sherry @young house love) The girl has a way of coming up with some funny sayings. Anyway, we changed up the kitchen this past weekend. see below for more of that.

When it was done, it smelled So yummy. Some of the sweet potatoes had turned a black color but tasted really good still, though the kids wouldn't eat them, they were like carmelized ( then again, I like my marshmellows flame broiled, so perfect to me). Hubby loved the ones that were sitting in the juices from the chicken and were not completely crisp, and both kids loved them. The chicken legs were also a big hit. That was what they gave me a high five for after the first bite. Now it did have a crisp skin because of the basting with olive oil towards the end of cooking, and man it was well worth it. The chicken was golden and juicy. The herbs added the perfect boost of flavor without being overboard. Highly recommend this recipe.



Ok, so now onto my kitchen change up. I am really bad about remembering to take before pictures. I guess I assumed I had pictures I could show of the kitchen before or of the dining room, but NO. So I have a few random pictures that show parts of my kitchen lol, so bear with me, mmm k.

Ok so here is a picture of our kitchen with hubby and my model at his 30th birthday (Vegas themed) she is playing with the leftover decorations.

 And another angle of the kitchen at my 30th birthday party (80's themed)

You can see the cherry cabinets, the dark granite countertops, glue down tile floor, so you see its a "nice" almost formal kitchen.  We have gone through 2 different tables in this kitchen nook. One from our first home, a townhouse with wrought iron and glass. It was too wide and did not give enough room for us to fully use it, so we sold it, and brought down a tall pub table and chairs, which was not working with a baby. It was too tall for her to reach the table in her high chair, and we were not comfortable strapping the portable high chair into one of the stools. Then when she no longer needed that, we didn't trust her sitting still in it so high up, besides her falling out or kicking it from the table one too many times.

 So, I pulled a plan off of Ana White's page. www.ana-white.com. And built this table. It Still is not stained or painted, just couldn't decide. This was my first building project like this. Hubby did not think I could do it, and was laughing at me. He did cut all the pieces for me and left me alone. I was pregnant at the time, and built this All by myself within 3 hours. It is being used above with a tablecloth over it. Works perfect. It will sit 6-8 easily in our home, and was something that I didn't care if it got dirty or messed up. It was built with scrap wood from my Father in Law who is a carpenter.

 Here it is being used at Halloween last year to carve pumpkins. You can see it is uncovered and we just put plastic down. It fit our lifestyle and being able to mess it up for projects, and physically fit in our room, though was not the aesthetic I was hoping for.

So we had been tossing around the idea of changing our formal dining room (which has only been used a handful of times- literally) into a playroom/craft room for the kids. And moving the formal table and chairs into the kitchen. I worried it would not look right with a formal table in the kitchen and talked to my friend Kristen over at The Shabby Shack and checking ideas on pinterest and Finally realized that our kitchen is more of a formal kitchen anyway. So I measured to make sure it would fit, decided to take the leaf out and only use 4 chairs for now, and hubby moved it around for me.

So, I have to say I.LOVE.IT! I think it pulls the kitchen together. We enjoy using it. We use it everyday now. My daughter likes to pretend we are eating at a restaurant, which makes me laugh. I actually think we may be able to add the leaf back in and the other chairs, but we will wait on that. It works great for now. What do you think? I moved the table I made into the dining room, so kids can use it as a craft table, or hubby can move it out to his shop to use out there for projects. I still have my formal china hutch and corner hutch in the dining room and need it out cause I am worried about the kids will get into the glass and our decor sitting on top- like the antique iron ( I can just see it falling on a kids head or something ya know). So progress. I have a few more things I want to do, like add some valences to the bay window for some color,  add a lampshade or drum to the light fixture here ala Young House Love seen here:

Ok I think this is the longest post I have ever written. I will let you digest all of that info now. Thanks for reading if you made it this far lol.


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