Cooking with Cheyenne; Roasted Chicken & Sides | Empowering Special Needs Life Skills

So you're making twice baked baked potatoes, roasted chicken and veggies. Yep. And what time are we eating at? Lunchtime. So what are you doing first? Cleaning the potatoes. So that we can do the first bake. Yeah. Get them going quickly. On the bottom rack please. So you're going to be putting that chicken on the other one. Now you need to go for walk in the garden and pick some herbs. I'm not coming out there because it's pouring. Great thanks. So I got a question on step five. Okay. It says smash and peel garlic and insert whole cloves inside chicken. Doesn't smash and peel mean like using the garlic crusher? No. Smashing them is just like squishing them, not crushing. So instead of like having it all come out of like little tiny pieces, it's just like a broken squished one. So are you ready to start? Yeah. I just have one more question. Okay. What's a giblet? So the giblets are the, like the liver or the kidneys, the parts that quite often they'll put them in a bag inside of your chicken or your turkey because doing a chicken and a turkey are pretty much the same. Okay. So sometimes they'll put the neck and the giblets inside and then you pull those out because some people will do other things with them. They might use them for their gravy. They might eat them. I know for a fact that this chicken doesn't have any of those because these are ones that we raised and grew. Yeah. So they already de-gutted and everything. Well, they're already, they're not, those things aren't attached. They're put back in a bag for people to use. They're not still attached in the chicken or the turkey. Let's get going. What do you have to do first? I have to set the chicken in a baking pan breast side up and pat dry with paper towels. Okay. Well, that's where I'm going to go against the recipe and I want the breast down. Okay. Because I find if we put the breast down then it gives us some moister chicken. Oh, so it's not so dry when you eat it? Yeah. So I like to put the breast down and then it's kind of cooking in the juices that are coming out of the bird and it's keeping it moist. So we're going to grease the pan first because we don't want everything sticking. So there's fats coming out of the bird so we don't really need too much. Just enough to make sure things aren't sticking. So when we're handling the chicken, we're going to be very careful as to what the chicken's touching, what your hands are touching, and what your hands touch after they have chicken on them because we don't want to poison anyone. It needs to be flipped away the other way, right? Yes, you're going to have to flip it around. You can put the bag into the garbage. You can flip it and then you're going to wash your hands after. So your chicken, wash your hands please. Your chicken is still a little bit frozen. Yeah. So it's going to take a little bit longer to cook. So you had the demonstration on how to crush or smash the garlic. So how do you smash the garlic? Go like this. One at a time. One at a time. Well, you're not that strong. And then what? And then smash. Okay, so you can smash them all. What do you think? That's a nice satisfaction sound. You had fun doing that? Yes. So what do we have to do with these garlics? You have to put them inside the bird. Okay, so start filling up that bird. Okay. So you're obviously going to have to touch the bird every time you're doing stuff and then you're going to have to wash your hands between steps. Okay. Hygiene is extremely important when you're dealing with a chicken or turkey. Soap and water between every time you touch that bird before you touch anything else. You pick some herbs from the garden. Let's get them washed. And then what do you have to do with them? I have to put them in the chicken as well. So just make sure there's no insects on them. You don't need any extra protein. Well, whoever gets the fly gets to do dishes. I'll make sure dad gets the fly. You might have to bend it and get it all in there. So why are you putting all of this in there? Flavor? Do I do all the carrots? If it's not all dried. Yes. Then what else did you have to put in there? The onion. Then you have one of your vegetables already done. So break them apart. What's the next step? Heat butter in a microwave safe bowl until melted. How much butter? So you could just put it into a mug. Okay. And we need four tablespoons. Approximately. It's looking good. While you're waiting for your butter, I want you to season your bird. Salt, pepper, and a little bit of chicken seasoning there. Okay. Let's get it all seasoned up. Is that probably good for pepper? A bit more. Okay, tell me when to stop. A fair bit on there. If your butter's done, what do you need to do with your butter? Sprinkle it on top. Just pour it right on top. Is that what it says? Drizzle butter over chicken and veggies. You're going to want to make sure you get some on your veggies especially. Stirring them up so that you make sure that there's butter coating most of it. Get it in the oven and let's get cooking. Did you add extra potatoes? I did because as the different teachers come in, they're like, oh, that looks good. I want some. So now you're making it for everybody. Yeah, like 13 someone people. That's okay. We're going to need to check your potatoes, the original ones. You're going to poke them with a fork and see if they're soft yet. Okay. So I would have an oven mitt on one hand so you can pull the pan out a bit, and a fork in the other hand to stab them. No, that one's a little hard. It doesn't look that hard. So you're going to do lemon, pepper, green beans as well. You need to get them out, wash them, see if there's any ends that need cutting off, and just have them prepped. So when it's time to cook them, they're ready. So maybe get a strainer or a colander to wash them in. So I just thought of a way to wash them. Could I put them all in the strainer and then rinse water over them? Yes. If they don't all fit at once, do part and then put them in the bowl and then do the next part. You have to turn the water on and actually get some pressure. So you need to cut all of your potatoes in half and that will help them start cooling a bit, which will make it easier for you to work with. So these have already been baked once. Yes. This is a good recipe if you have extra baked potatoes. Can't say that one fast. So if you have extras, you could do this recipe. If you were planning ahead and you were cooking something, you could throw the potatoes in early. You don't necessarily want to run your oven just to make these. You can also cook your baked potatoes in the microwave. Takes about 10 minutes to cook one or two potatoes in the microwave. That doesn't seem long if you're like living by yourself. That's not long if you're by yourself, but you probably wouldn't have to serve for 10 people. Yeah, but you might not want to turn your oven on to bake one or two potatoes and have it on for an hour. So now you're scooping out the potato. Yep. Okay. And you're going to have to do little bits because you don't want it to break. Some will break, but we're trying to do it as careful as possible so that we can restuff them. A bit more. That looks good. Then put it on your pan and we're going to try and put them nice and neat on the pan in rows. So when we go to restuff them, it'll be a little bit easier. If you had baked these potatoes in advance and they were in the fridge, it would be a little bit easier to work with because they wouldn't be as hot. So do you think twice-baked is worth it or would you prefer to see them baked once? Is it worth all this extra effort? Probably. Once they're cleared out, they kind of look like boats. Yep. Though I doubt they will float. I doubt it. What's your favorite part of this meal? I'd say the chicken. What's yours? I think maybe all of it together. All the flavors coming together. It's smelling delicious. You can really smell the rosemary. Right now I'm just kind of smelling potatoes. I think you're going to drive everybody crazy and make them hungry by lunchtime. No, I'm going to starve them and not give it to them until three o'clock when they have to leave. You need to mash those potatoes. Okay. So get the potato masher. You know what a potato masher looks like. Get all your aggression out. Put all of that. Empty it out completely because there wasn't that much in there. We're just going to mix it till it looks good. You could get a spatula and it'll be easier to clean that out. So your sour cream's in there. Yeah. Let's sprinkle some cheese in there and mix it up. Dump it all in? Yeah, that's the end of the package. Let's get it all and then I'd like you to cut up some green onion and we're going to put that in there as well. A bit bigger. That's good. Make it smaller if you want. So why do we have all these glasses of green onions? Because you can grow green onions inside your house without dirt. When we bought green onions, we leave about an inch at the end where the root was and put them in with a little bit of water and then what happens? They grow and they last like two or three times of cutting them off completely before they get too hard and you have to get rid of them. And it's nice too because you don't have to go up back in the pouring rain to grab green onions. So this is just a way to get a little bit of extra mileage out of your groceries? Yep. So if you do it too many times, what happens? It gets hard and they get really scrawny. So you can see these ones aren't as thick as what they would be when you buy them originally. No, but they're still thicker than what they would be the next time we use the last one. That might be enough onion or do you want more? No, I think you're going to need it all. And do you know you can line them up? Oh, I can. And cut more than one piece at a time. You think it would save time? Probably. Work smarter, not harder. Do you know how many times I hear that saying roughly in a week? Are you learning anything? Possibly. Okay, that's all that matters, right? We're making progress. So you can add your green onions. Okay. So with these potatoes, you could also add bacon bits. Okay. We don't have any, so we're not going to do that. So right now you have green onions, sour cream, and cheese in there. And you're going to mix them all up. Yep. So it's a nice rough mashed potato consistency. Yep. And then we're going to restuff them. So it's all mixed up? Yep. Okay, now you need to restuff your potatoes. Like that? Once they're restuffed, then you just have to bake them again. Okay. They won't take as long to bake because they're already cooked. So really, the second time. It's just to melt the cheese, kind of. Just to heat them up. Are you guys getting hungry at all? Do you think they're as hungry as you are? I betcha, maybe even more. Have we gotten any new people onto our map yet? We have a long list that you guys have to work on. We really appreciate everybody sending their locations. Yeah. It's been a lot of fun for us updating the map. So Cheyenne, for those that don't know about the map, do you want to tell us about it? So we have a map that's probably big enough to be a wallpaper. Okay. And on this map, our viewers get to send in whereabouts they live. It doesn't have to be specific. It could be if you wanted it to be. But we just need like your country and town, if it's on the map. If we can't find your town, then we stick you wherever on the map. And then we mark you down. And then as we add people, we count them. We count the dots. And then we're able to see where most of our viewers are from. Yeah. And who's the furthest away and things like that. In fact, we have one from China. That's cool. And New Zealand and the United Kingdom. And we have some people that are actually quite close to us in Washington. So we're having dinner super early today. Yes. Because we have evening activities. What activities do you have? I have soccer and agility. And as soon as soccer is done, I have to help set up all the agility equipment. Because you actually are trading the cost of agility for work. Yes. To make it that it's affordable for you. Yes. Which is quite nice that they're allowing me to do that. Because some places might not allow you to do work trade like that. But when there's an opportunity, you latch onto it. It just makes it a little bit more feasible for you with your limited income. Yes. A lot of what we do is trying to teach Cheyenne and the others that if they weren't living here, how would they be able to afford things? And just learning different ways of expanding their resources. And one of Cheyenne's resources is her ability to trade work for a service. Yes. In fact, I have now been able to take that skill for agility and for a two hour job. Look at that bird. Looking wonderful. I'm going to get your potatoes going. Smelling good. I'd say it's done. Looking pretty good. Some of the veggies are burnt. They're not burnt. They're just cooked well. What do you think? Looks good. Are you happy with it? It's a nice golden brown. You have to ask your dad if he'll carve it for you. What does it say? Combo knife sharpener. Yeah. Because I'm going to sharpen the knife before it gets carved. So this is looking done. I'm going to let it sit until it gets carved up. Okay. And you're going to cook up your beans. Yes. So what seasoning are you putting on your beans? I'm doing lemon pepper. So we're just sautéing them lightly with some lemon pepper and what kind of oil did you put in there? Olive oil. So just a tiny bit of olive oil. Shane, on a scale of one to ten, how easy was this meal to prepare? I'd say maybe a seven or eight. It was pretty easy. Pretty easy. There was no tears. No emotional support animal needed. So that's the scale. No emotional support animal needed. Yep. Do you like your beans so far? They're looking good. I think they're almost done. In fact, we can probably turn them off now because they're going to continue to cook a tiny bit in that pan. We want them on the crunchy side. Okay. That's not browned up enough yet. So let's keep that going. Dad's carving the bird for you. Who put these on the oven? I did because I was going to check your potatoes. Fire hazard. Busted. So Dean, are you going to have this for lunch or a sandwich? Dean really struggles with meals that he feels are traditional lunch meals or meals that are traditional dinner meals. Because we have our stomachs out of time and I like my stuff. Okay. So when we have sports, it frustrates you that there's sandwiches at dinnertime, doesn't it? Yes. But you're going to have your dinner at lunchtime. So we just trade it. Okay. And every time it's a bit of a struggle, isn't it? How are your potatoes looking? Restaurant fancy. Beautiful. What do you think? Looks good. It does.