Lydia's Cooking Adventures--CHICKEN

So, where to begin on this blog post? I have always been a picky eater. Anyone who remotely knows me and has eaten more than 5 meals with me can tell you that. When I was younger, I thought all meat was chicken. My brother and parents would ask me what kind of meat we were eating...the answer was always chicken. So where did my weird meat handling problems come from? Who knows...but maybe one of the following stories had something to do with it. If you're squeamish, I would suggest skipping down 4 paragraphs where I actually get to talking about my cooking adventures here in Ukraine :)

In 7th grade, I went with one of my best friends from Alabama, Caitlin, to the Mississippi State Veterinary clinic program. My parents took us...and there is not much that I remember from that weekend except 1) walking away with a t-shirt that I loved, 2) eating at a podunk restaurant, and 3) seeing inside a live cow. I don't remember how the cow part worked, but I remember you could stick your hand inside a giant hole on the side of it. I chose not to.

Caitlin, Lydia, Rajini--I'm actually WEARING the shirt that I got that weekend at Mississippi State...even though this picture is maybe 3 or 4 years later.

In 9th grade, I went to Global Village which is a part of Heifer International--an organization my family has always loved and supported. Scott Meier took about 25 high schoolers to this weekend retreat in the middle of Arkansas where we were to live like a third world country for a night. The people (adults) who got to stay in "Guatamala" (the fanciest housing for the night with actual beds) had the option of killing a rabbit for their meal. The only catch was, if you wanted to eat it, you had to watch it be killed. So, the cute, white, little bunny foo foo that we had passed upon entering the camp was actually going to be our dinner that night. I watched. It squealed. I cried. It died. It was horrible...and I'm pretty sure I didn't eat meat for a good month after going home.

I was by no means an avid watcher of Oprah, but if I happened to catch an episode that I thought looked interesting, I usually watched it. One day, I happened to be flipping through the channels and caught an episode on organic food and how the United States has it pretty messed up. They showed parts of this documentary, Food, Inc., which I never got around to watching. Maybe I can find it to watch now with all of my free time :) Here's a link to the trailer of the video...be prepared for it to get your mind thinking!

So, the episode on Oprah showed a few chicken farms in America...if my memory serves me correct, only one or two of the TWELVE they interviewed would let them film. If that doesn't tell you something, I don't know what does. I won't go into detail, but the episode made me realize how America is driven on having everything faster, faster, faster. Alicia Silverstone was also a guest on the show, talking about her book The Kind Diet. She discussed on the show that you don't have to jump into being a complete health nut overnight...start small. Like changing regular, everyday items to organic items: milk, pasta, chicken, etc. From that day on, I got organic milk. I would get other organic products when I could find them, but it definitely presented a problem when you are a college-age girl who still can't cook worth a flip. Animals are treated better on organic farms and given the proper amount of time to grow...which made all the difference in the world to me (at least in my crazy head!). So, there's my little rant about organic products...which brings me to my time in Ukraine!

Organic products in Ukraine...pretty easy to come by considering half of the food at the bazaar is fresh from someone's back yard. I'm still getting used to the idea of all of this...and sometimes it would be beneficial if I truly understood what I was buying at the grocery store (at least I have a grocery store in my city! A lot of them actually...), but I am trying to eat healthier here in Ukraine. Our PC monthly stipend doesn't allow us to eat out for every meal, and I'm not sure where i would eat out even if I could (it'd be a lot of pizza places no doubt). So, a few days ago, I actually bought chicken at the supermarket and decided I needed to conquer one of my life's fears: handling raw chicken. Enjoy the process :)

The "chicken-in-a-bag" that my host mom always made...it's absolutely delish. There are two different kinds I've been able to find, one that has peppers on the front and one that has onions. Neither taste like the chicken my host mom made, although they're both good. The peppers one has more kick to it...definitely better flavoring.

Mom suggested I cut up some potatoes and carrots to go in the chicken-in-a-bag as well. Pretty smart lady she is...because they were fantastic!

Minor mishap while cutting the carrots.

The chicken that I purchased. Thought I was buying chicken breats...turned out to be thighs. Whoops.

Ready to touch the chicken. Thank you, self-timer.

Didn't take any pictures of the chicken fat free after I cleaned them. Pretty sure I threw away parts of the chicken that were not actually fat, but I didn't care at the time.

I had too many potatoes to fit in the chicken-in-a-bag, so I put some oil in the pan (Ukrainians favorite way of fixing any type of meal) and browned the extra potato in the skillet. They were amazing.

Waiting...cooked it for almost an hour!

The goodness that would be my meals for the next few days.

Making sure the chicken was done...

Ta-da! What movie am I watching? :)

One of my other meals that I had with my leftover chicken...Chicken caesar salad with sunflower kernels, cheese, caesar dressing, and crouton-esque snacks. The crouton things come in two flavors...white and wheat bread. The wheat bread ones taste like the brown pumpernickel things in Gardettos. To. Die. For.

This might be my favorite thing yet. It tasted like something straight off the Panera menu. Chicken panini with caesar dressing and gouda cheese (splurged on at the store). Buttered the bread and toasted it in the toaster oven.

My other favorite thing as of lately.

The end :) I'm impressed if you read all of that! Happy Thursday!