{"id":984,"date":"2021-01-10T22:24:34","date_gmt":"2021-01-11T05:24:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sparkledesign.net\/fidget\/?p=984"},"modified":"2021-09-21T20:33:48","modified_gmt":"2021-09-22T03:33:48","slug":"perfecting-the-basics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sparkledesign.net\/fidget\/2021\/01\/10\/perfecting-the-basics\/","title":{"rendered":"Perfecting the Basics"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I wonder why I love cooking so much? Aside from the fact that I love to eat, I think it’s because it’s very satisfying to the “control freak” part of my nature (it’s a major part, ok!). Even when things seem chaotic out in the world, I still get to decide what we are having for dinner and I can tweak the recipe to my heart’s content. And I do… I like to have a good recipe to start from, but I almost always tweak it to suit my needs. Enter America’s Test Kitchen. I like that their recipes are tested to be “foolproof,” and I’ve learned a lot from them about food science and smart cooking tricks over the years. But even so, I tweak. Especially since I don’t have all the shiny equipment and appliances. I’m just not into gadgets. I’m thrilled with my new immersion blender but I lean toward simple workhorse items like my cast iron skillet and my Dutch oven. So, baking a whole cut-up chicken in a cast iron skillet is my idea of a perfect easy-to-make-it-awesome recipe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Roast<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Cast-Iron Baked Chicken<\/a>: I followed this one to the letter, which is unusual for me, except I added fresh rosemary with the thyme because I had some on hand. I had been meaning to try baking potatoes at the same time, and it worked out great! The timing worked out just right. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Best Baked Potatoes<\/a>: My mods were to skip the rack-in-baking sheet setup, since I wanted them to sit next to the skillet in the oven, so I used my griddle pan. Worked fine. A simple frozen veggie or bagged salad make this meal super easy, but the 45-minute baking time would allow for a more elaborate salad or veggie side.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I like to have a good recipe to start from, but I almost always tweak it to suit my needs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":985,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[44,126,84],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sparkledesign.net\/fidget\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/984"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sparkledesign.net\/fidget\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sparkledesign.net\/fidget\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sparkledesign.net\/fidget\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sparkledesign.net\/fidget\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=984"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.sparkledesign.net\/fidget\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/984\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1559,"href":"https:\/\/www.sparkledesign.net\/fidget\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/984\/revisions\/1559"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sparkledesign.net\/fidget\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sparkledesign.net\/fidget\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sparkledesign.net\/fidget\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sparkledesign.net\/fidget\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}