Alright, so I have no right winning this challenge as I didn't prepare anything I've not made many times before, I took one really crappy photo and it wasn't even of the food plated. Here it is:

I marinated some beef tri-tip in soy sauce and fresh ginger. I marinated the Chicken in the same thing. I grilled the meat along with some chorizo. I also took some ground beef and added taco seasoning and cooked it. -Simple stuff as far as the meats go.

Not pictured: I used the yogurt sauce I made for the last challenge that ghostoffuffle steered me towards as a sort of chimichuri sauce for the beef. I made black beans, spanish rice, fresh guacamole (also from last challenge) and put out salsa, sour cream, cheese, hard taco shells and tortillas. We had 6 people over for dinner. I made margaritas, side cars and white spiders to drink.

It was such a good time that I forgot to take any photos. But yeah, lots of meat. I now have so many leftovers that I'll be eating tacos for a week.

Alright, roast chicken. Cribbed from a Bon Appetit recipe. Easy. All you need is the following:

black pepper (1/2 t), herbs de provence (1/4 c), olive oil (1/4 c), salt (1 t), garlic (6 cloves, minced fine).

Oh yeah, and Millie.

Giving her a name makes her tastier

Before I begin, some notes on Millie.

If not for prior experience, I'd feel a lot worse for Millie. After all, as a practiced eye can see, she's not a free range bird. She is a factory-produced monster, pumped so full of growth hormones that you can feel the 'roid rage work its dark magic just from standing too close to her. Finished off with salt water, probably injected via some alien probe-looking thing with lots of pointy bits. Ugly. Ida sprung for the crunchier option, but my wife and I did a budget work-up last month and concluded that we've been spending on the upwards of 1600 bigguns a month on groceries- that's a thousand dollars over our bottom line. We live across the street from a grocery store and we have three kids, what are you gonna do. Answer: buy into Big Chicken.

Anyhow, I don't feel so bad about it. See, we raised chickens for three years- inherited our landlord's brood when we moved into our current house, treated them like our own until our landlord decided that he wanted to play farmer again and took them to his new place.

Here's what I'll say about chickens: they are the vilest, most prehistorically stupid creatures ever to curse the range with their existence. Ornery, petty feather-lizards. At one point we made the mistake of introducing a new one into the flock- Penny- who was summarily pecked half to death (now you know the origin of the term "pecking order"). I had to finish the job a week later when her failed limping attempts at the feed dispenser, rebuffed by her compatriots, made it clear that she was doomed to starvation or a messier end at the jaws of some mangy suburban predator.

Anyhoo, all this is to say that chickens. Are. Terrible. And I'm talking the varietals we've bred to be as docile as possible, god knows what they get away with in the wild. So factory chicken: A-okay by me. Until I get whatever cancer you get from eating too much factory chicken. Then I'll probably have some things to say. Onward.

1. Preheat oven to 475.

2. Mix all above ingredients in a bowl, excluding Millie.

3. Slip your hands under the chicken skin, separate from the bird.

4. Rub as much of that sweet herb slurry under the skin as you can.

By the way, don't forget to take the giblets out of Millie's cavity, and save them for later:

I'll get to them when I'm good and ready

5. Place on wire rack placed inside of a roasting pan. Stick that shit into the oven.

6. Roast until skin is brown.

7. Lower heat to 350, roast for like another 45 minutes to an hour (shorter if you sprung for the more natural, smaller bird). Until the inside is 160 or something.

8. Carve it. Save the carcass. Eat it. EAT IT

I had it with crusty bread (would've made it myself if I'd planned better), balsamic vinegar and olive oil, and the rest of what used to be a gigantic bottle of Knob Creek:

so much brown in this picture

So what, roast chicken. Big deal. BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE. I'm gonna take all the left over bones, meat, drippins', and giblets and make a fucking. Pie out of them tomorrow, to be added to this post in an update. If you're gonna eat meat, use every part of the beast, I say. I'll be back.

FOLLOW UP:

Quick breakdown of what I did w/ rest:

Stock w/ bones & giblets (w/ various other veggies):

Basics of inside of pie, more or less:

Also made the roux ouf of the rendered chicken fat instead of butter; finished product was gravy using the chicken stock.

Whole pie looked like this:

Cross section like this:

Tasted a whole lot like chicken. I'm ready for a meal that's not chicken.

Is this where I submit entries?

Start your meal with a fine pinot noir. I love this one, and not just for the name. There's only one liquor store I know of that sells it, which is on Concord Pike leading into West Chester out of Wilmington. I used to live around there which is how I first encountered the wine.

Mug wine is a delicacy. Enjoy your mug wine.

Slice up some shit. (Not all shit pictured. Also sliced: beautiful fleshy plum tomatoes, mozzarella, baby bellas, and garlic.) Saute the garlic, put the potatoes on to boil with some salt, and make yo' self yo' appetizer, aka caprese salad, which is delicious with the wine. Delicious in general. The basil came fresh from the garden.

What's the meat? FLOUNDER. I don't think I had ever had flounder before and I certainly am no expert in cooking fish at all. I can do your pork chops, your steak, and way overcook your chicken...so I thought fish would be a good selection. We let it rest in buttermilk for a while, crushed saltines and almonds, and dipped one side of the fish in this to create a crust. We then baked it for 20 minutes. Apparently you do not flip flounder.

Drain and mash yer potates. Yes, potates. Add in some heavy whipping cream, ALL the garlic, 2 tbsp butter.

Enjoy. Yum yum yum yum yum. The flounder came out perfectly, light, white, and falling apart.

Oh I forgot. Bake asparagus with olive oil, parm, and some lemon, even though it's not in season.

You can eat a lion if you fight the lion.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to make anything exotic or even anything fancy, but I am pretty satisfied nonetheless. I made some bacon cheeseburgers.

Onions, pickles and mustard, with a little home made mayo. Still hungover, but feeling better!

Despite all the meat-drama recently, I would love it if the responses were vegetarian meat-like dishes. I love the taste of meat ( Umami in Japanese?) but i've realized lately this can be achieved with the use of spices. I'm eager to broaden my horizons. Because every time i've tried to make a recipe that requires meat while omitting the meat, it was good but was definitely lacking taste.

I might be wrong but I think vegetarian recipes require more than just "cooking without meat". The problem is that i've got no idea how adn would love some suggestions :)

I' pretty swamped with exams this week but i'll definitely post if I find the time.

(honestly, I feel a bit like a looser saying I ain't got no time considering yall got kids and a full time job while I just go to school for about 25h a week.)