How To Roast A Chicken In 30 Minutes

Writen by Michael Sheridan

Every now and then cooks run out of time and suddenly find themselves under pressure, with a meal looming and a hungry family impatient for their baked chicken dinner.

Stay cool. It does not have to take 60 minutes or more to roast a chicken, it just takes a little cunning and a fairly relaxed half an hour.

Well, alright, it will take 35 minutes, but it will still be roasted and will still be the entire chicken.

There are two methods you can use, one of which involves practically no work on your part at all. So let's start with that one.

You need a 1.5kg (that's about 3lbs) chicken or smaller. Mix together a little olive oil, some dark soy sauce, a teaspoon of paprika, a tablespoon of mixed dried herbs and two crushed cloves of garlic.

Paint this mix all over the chicken, then put it into a roasting bag and seal it by twisting the end of the bag and folding it under the chicken.

Punch a couple of holes in the bag and microwave on High for 30 minutes. At the end of the cooking time, leave the chicken in the microwave, without opening the door, for a further 5 minutes.

Be careful when you open the bag, just in case there is still some steam waiting to escape. It can burn you.

If you don't like that idea, or you don't have a microwave, then you can use a conventional oven preheated to 180°C, 350°F, but now you will have to joint your chicken.

Don't worry, it's easy. You simply cut it into quarters using either a sharp cook's knife or kitchen shears. Start at the tail end with the chicken on its back and cut down through the parson's nose. Now stand the chook on its neck with the backbone towards you and cut straight down, using the notch in the parson's nose as your starting point.

Flatten out the bird, skin-side down, and cut from neck to tail, through the center of the gelatinous membrane that forms the breast-bone.

Finally, cut across the halves between the thigh and breast to make your quarters. You will easily see where to do this. It's a natural cutting point.

Place the pieces skin-side up in a roasting tin large enough to hold them without overlapping, brush them with the mixture given above, and bake for 30 minutes, basting once.

For the last five minutes turn the oven heat to full, which will help to give a crisper finish. You can miss out this step if you intend to discard the skin.

As always with roasted meat, once the cooking time is over keep the chicken warm but let it stand for five minutes before carving. This lets it relax and allows the juices to spread evenly throughout the joint.

When you carve the breast, instead of slicing it lengthways as you normally would, remove it from the bone in one piece and then slice it at a slight angle, starting at the neck end and working back. You can joint the legs in the usual way.

Michael Sheridan is an acknowledged authority and published writer on cooking matters. His website at http://thecoolcook.com contains a wealth of information, hints, tips and recipes for busy home cooks.

Two For One Dinners Eggplant

Writen by Michele Webb

If you find leftovers boring, uninviting or downright "yuck," then here are some ideas to put the "zing" back into mealtime. With a little creativity your home-cooked meal can easily become a delicious meal another night. There are a six articles in this series, today we are going to look at what you can do with eggplant.

DINNER - NIGHT ONE: Eggplant Parmesan

Layer baked eggplant slices with ricotta and mozzarella cheeses and tomato sauce, then top with a mixture of breadcrumbs and Parmesan cheese for a delicious vegetarian take on comfort food. Best when baked in a glass baking dish. Store leftovers, covered tightly, in the glass baking dish. Serve with steamed broccoli and bread twists.

DINNER - NIGHT TWO: Rigatoni with Eggplant Sauce

Up to two nights later, chop the leftover casserole coarsely, then toss it with leftover tomato sauce and mix with cooked rigatoni for a great pasta dish. Serve with a tossed salad and bread (optional).

Publishing Rights: You have permission to publish this article electronically, in print, in your ebook or on your website, free of charge, as long as the author's information and web link are included at the bottom of the article and the article is not changed, modified or altered in any way. The web link should be active when the article is reprinted on a web site or in an email. Copyright 2005, Michele Webb. All Rights Reserved.

Michele Webb owns her own website and is a member of a number of organizations for women Netpreneurs and business owners. She has over 20 years experience in health care, clinical trials, management, project management and software development. She currently lives in Las Vegas, Nevada USA with her two dogs.

You are invited to visit her website at: http://www.ebooksnstuff.com. Or, you can email the author at: support@ebooksnstuff.com

What Do You Want For Dinner

Writen by Jennie Crawford

Those six words are the ones I think my husband most dreads each day. Our favorite dishes are those that someone else cooks for us. Trying to come up with new ideas for dinner is something that we both try to do, but is difficult. It seems that our favorite dishes come from restaurants. But going out to order our favorite dishes from these restaurants is something we can't afford to do every night. We also have two small children who can't always be trusted to behave when we visit nice restaurants. We have walked out on steak dinners one too many times to keep trying that too often. At least not until they reach an age where we can count on them to behave. And if I ask my two children, they will say" lets go out to dinner!". Not much help when we need to eat at home.

So we have pot roast. Again. Or I resort to frozen fish sticks and french fries. I don't mind cooking, but with our two small children who are VERY picky eaters, its hard to experiment with many dishes because they are pretty unwilling to try new things. Their favorite dishes most often contain either pizza or hot dogs. Of course when we do go out to dinner they can almost always find something on the menu to try and they almost always like it. It never ceases to amaze me what they are willing to try when we are out to dinner. They have favorite dishes at almost every restaurant that we go to.

If only I could copy those recipes for their favorite dishes at home. I have tried but I am always missing something. They never turn out just right. It would be great to finally have a cookbook with all these recipes in it that I could turn to when 4pm rolls around and I need to decide what we are having for dinner. My husband also has some favorite dishes from some well known restaurants and it would be nice to be able to surprise him with a meal at home that he would actually enjoy. I have searched for the recipes online, but haven't been able to find the exact ones from the exact restaurants that we go to.

So what's for dinner? I'm not sure. Probably pot roast. Another boring dinner at home. If only I could find some new recipes for my families favorite dishes. It would make dinner time an enjoyable experience again. Cooking my families favorite dishes for a change would make everyone in my family happy.

Jennie Crawford is the stay at home mom of two children trying to decide whats for dinner. For more information on restaurant recipes, go to: http://www.jenniecrawford.com/secretrestaurantrecipes