Sunday, Staying In...

I woke up late on Sunday. Apparently, the cup of coffee I made at 9:00 p.m. on Saturday night was a mistake!

So, I had to rush a bit. I needed to get the drumsticks into their marinade. I was using a Michael Ruhlman recipe, BTW. He’s never steered me wrong yet!

I put a small onion, thinly sliced, four cloves of garlic (smashed) and a teaspoon of vegetable oil into a medium sized pot. I sautéed that for about three minutes. Then I added some kosher salt, a handful of dried Rosemary (the recipe calls for 4-6 stalks of fresh rosemary, but neither I nor the little grocery store had any), 4 1/2 cups of water and the juice of one fresh lemon. I let that come to a boil and then turned it to simmer, until the salt dissolved. I let it cool and then refrigerated it until it was cold. I put all the drumsticks into a baggie and added the brine. Then I set the baggie into a bowl (in case of leaks) and into the fridge. It needed to marinate at least eight hours.

I also made another bag of shredded cabbage and carrots into coleslaw, for a side dish. I tossed it about in the store-bought dressing and stuck that in the fridge to cool as well. Now, you may be wondering about this seemingly obsessive interest I have developed with coleslaw. Not really. I realize I need to eat something green and fresh in these winter months. But, I buy lettuce all the time, forget to make a salad and then end up throwing away the rotting heads. So, this is a nice alternative. Plus, I like coleslaw…

Next, I ran through the myriad of Sunday morning chores, culminating in doing the last load of laundry.

It was 25 degrees F. at noon, so I went out to spray polyurethane on my Brother Carl’s bar stool seat in the garage. But, I found a veritable lake in the garage from the snow that melted off the truck. So, I got the keys and pulled the truck outside. Then I swept all the water out into the driveway.

Sidebar: In pulling the truck outside and then getting out, I discovered the rain from yesterday had melted the snow a bit and then froze overnight. So everything was treacherous! I was glad I didn’t have to drive anywhere today!

Sidebar #2: My neighbor, Rick, was out there, plowing his driveway with his ATV. But, for a change, he didn’t come over and plow mine as well. I suspect he knows I don’t need it, now…

So, I sprayed the first coat of polyurethane on the seat, pulled the truck back inside and set the stove timer for one hour and 45 minutes. You have to recoat the polyurethane within two hours or wait 72 hours, sand it and then spray it again, you see.

I hung up or folded all the laundry from the dryer. Then I took a break and watched a DIY show.

When the timer went off, I went back in the garage and gave the bar stool seat another coat of polyurethane.

Then I took a nice long nap.

When I woke up, it was already after 5:00 p.m., so I got started on my fried chicken legs. First I made the coating. I put three cups of A/P flour in a bowl. Then I added three tablespoons of black pepper, two tablespoons of paprika, two tablespoons of fine sea salt, two teaspoons of cayenne pepper and two tablespoons of baking powder. I mixed that with a whisk and divided it into two bowls. In a third bowl I put two cups of buttermilk.

I set a rack on one of my half sheet pans. I took the chicken drumsticks out of the fridge, rinsed off the marinade in cold water and pated each one dry with paper towels. Then I dredged them in the flour mixture, shook off the excess flour and dipped them in the buttermilk. Then I dredged them again in the second bowl. I shook that off and put them back on the rack.

I got out my Dutch oven and a candy thermometer and filled it about 1/3 full of canola oil. I heated that up to 350 degrees F. and put three chicken legs in it. I had some problems with keeping the temperature at 350 degrees, (it went too high) so the first three were a bit dark. I let each batch go for about 15 minutes, turning them occasionally, and then put them on another rack on a half sheet pan covered with paper towels.

When I was done with all 10 chicken legs, I let them rest for 10 minutes and then dug in. Now, I will admit, I had grease splatters all over my new stove and the whole house smelled like fried chicken, but they were awesome!

I ate four and a healthy amount of coleslaw for my Sunday supper.

I was waiting for the new “Sherlock” on PBS and there was nothing much on TV, so I started watching the Super Bowl. I’m not that big a fan of football, but the commercials were great and the halftime show, with Bruno Mars and the Red Hot Chili Peppers was excellent.

Finally, it was 10:00 p.m. and Sherlock was on. I watched that and then went to bed.