California roast chicken with lemon, thyme and pear stuffing

First the obligatory baby shot! 

Getting a bath from Dad. This one did make me laugh, she is laughing too. Babies are like cats, they always look gorgeous in photographs!

Cooking with family is one of my most favourite things.  Roast lemon chicken is also one of my favourite things. We went to the supermarket and found a lovely big well raised bird, stuffed it, squeezed local lemon juice all over it, ground on the pepper, and cooked it for an hour and a half. The stock from the vegetable peelings simmered for the gravy, while the dark red sweet potato, that was so close to the New Zealand Kumara, roasted alongside the cauliflower.   

The stuffing was begun with a good grainy bread, toasted and torn into chunky pieces, roughly chopped thyme, rosemary, onion and pear (for sweetness).  In the absence of a citrus zester I carefully peeled a thin edge of lemon rind, and after chopping it finely, added this too. The mixture was soaked in balsamic vinegar and an egg.  The whole mess was mixed up with my hands and stuffed into the chicken.   Every single stuffing I make is different and this one was a wild success. 

My son has three small feijoa bushes in his garden, which have begun to yield smallish fruits, much to the excitement of the New Zealand side of this little family. On her walks his wife discovered that a neighbour has a few bushes too, though he only grows them for the flowers (horror). So we bought a few tart apples to offset the sweet fragrant tones of the feijoas, wifey raided the tree down the road to supplement our tiny harvest, and we made a Feijoa and Apple Crumble adding finely chopped almonds for extra crunch.

Good morning! The only thing about travelling is that early morning here is not the same time as early morning on the farmy, so your posts will be coming in later. The weather is lovely here though, warm, a little overcast, but perfectly lovely.

Today we will visit the consignment stores and post some presents back to Illinois. And tomorrow I am off back out into the world to fly back to New Zealand. But I will see you before that.  Because today I am making a fridgeatta for lunch (Mack has a source of very good cheddar and we have left over roast vegetables in the fridge) and Mama’s lasagna for dinner.

If you do ever get to travel into this valley, or are even passing through, pull off and stand in the citrus orchards. The scent is as brilliant as shining clean sun. The air is not heavy with the smell of citrus, it is not a heavy smell, it kind of dances with the clear unadulterated freshness of mandarins, oranges, lemons.  It does not join with other smells, it circles alone in the air. When we were driving yesterday I had the windows down and the scent cut straight through all the trafficky, fumey, murkey smokey smells of high speed heavy traffic and soared lightly right into the car. The smell of orange trees is like a music, it makes you raise and turn your head to face it.

Have a lovely day.

celi