Equipment
Roasting pan or ceramic casserole

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

2. Cut the onions into wedges and the potatoes into 1-inch cubes. Spread them over the bottom of the baking dish.

3. In a small dish, combine salt and pepper in a 2:1 ratio.

4. Open the chicken over the sink and let any residual juices or blood drain. Reach into the cavity to see if there are any giblets left inside. If so remove them, and either discard them or save them to make soup stock at a later time. You’ll want to take a paper towel and pat dry your chicken. Please DO NOT rinse your chicken; running water and raw chicken can help spread salmonella.

5. Place the chicken breast side up over the bed of onions and potatoes. Drizzle the exterior and the cavity of the chicken with olive oil, and then sprinkle liberally with the salt and pepper blend.

6. If you have them on hand, you could put lemon or orange wedges, garlic cloves, or fresh herbs in the cavity at this point to infuse a bit more flavor.

7. Put the chicken in the oven, and set the timer for one hour (the general rule is 20 minutes for every pound of chicken you’re cooking).

8. Test the chicken for doneness. This can be done in a few ways. One is to jiggle the drumstick a little and see if the juices run clear (clear juices means it’s done, red juices means it’s not ready yet). You can also insert an instant-read thermometer into the thickest part of the chicken. It’s done if it reads 165. If the chicken isn’t ready, put it back in the oven for 10-15 minutes and re-test.

9. Place your chicken on a platter over the bed of roasted potatoes and onions. Enjoy!

NOTE: To flavor your chicken just a bit more you can apply an herb butter. This requires you to chop fresh herbs like rosemary or thyme, and mash them into room-temperature butter. Carefully lift the chicken skin to prevent ripping, and massage the butter under the skin so it spread throughout the chicken.

Laura Troyani heads up Marketing and Business Development for Plummelo. Not content with just being another behind-the-scenes pencil pusher, Laura decided to give blogging a shot and writes practical, everyday tips for the home cook (or aspiring home cook). Laura’s favorite foods are ice cream, olive oil, ice cream, parmesan cheese, ice cream, and occasionally ice cream.

Easy Pasta & Tuna (5 ingredients)
Sauté 3 cloves of chopped garlic in oil, one handful of chopped parsely, and one can of tuna. Add to ½ lb of pasta and enjoy.

Miso Soup (5 ingredients)
Dissolve miso paste in 1 quart of hot water per package instructions. Add ½ pacakge udon noodles, 8 chopped shitake mushroom, 10 julienned baby carrots, and ½ package cubed tofu.

Italian Panini (5 ingredients)
Drizzle olive oil over two slices of Italian bread. Place slices of fresh mozzarella, sliced tomato, and basil between the slices and grill. (If you have a Panini press, use it now. If you don’t, you can heat the sandwich in a skillet, and weight it down with a heavy pot to press it together.)

Upscale Mac ‘N Cheese (4 ingredients)
Cook 1 lb bulgur wheat per package instructions. Add 8 oz. grated sharp cheddar cheese, 5 strips of chopped bacon, and a handful of chopped chives.

The Vegetarian (4 ingredients)
Cook 1 pound of quinoa per package instructions. Top with 8 oz of chopped roasted red peppers, 1 package of wilted fresh spinach, and a handful of feta cheese.

Photo by RejiK (flickr)

Laura Troyani heads up Marketing and Business Development for Plummelo. Not content with just being another behind-the-scenes pencil pusher, Laura decided to give blogging a shot and writes practical, everyday tips for the home cook (or aspiring home cook). Laura’s favorite foods are ice cream, olive oil, ice cream, parmesan cheese, ice cream, and occasionally ice cream.

For years I assumed that restaurants somehow had better access to fresher fish than I do and saved most of my seafood eating for when we were dining out. Additionally, I am a “once a week grocery shopper,” and I tend to pick up the ingredients to flesh out four or five recipes in one trip. Even when I can find fresh fish that really appeals to me, I prefer to buy fish the day I’m going to cook it. And so making a seafood entree seemed to necessitate an extra trip to the market, which is a total pain with little kids.

Even here in New England, most of the fish we get in even the best markets has been previously frozen. I always turned my nose up at this until I learned that the fish is actually flash frozen while still out on the boat–when you think about it, what’s fresher than that? I took this a step further and asked myself why I would want to buy fish that is previously frozen when I can buy it actually frozen and defrost it myself.

And so a whole new world of possibilities has opened with excellent frozen fish choices. All of the local grocery stores, wholesale clubs, and even Trader Joe’s carry bags of individually sealed frozen fish fillets, shrimp in assorted sizes, and scallops. Now I keep the fish in my freezer, defrost it quickly by running it under cold water, and can cook it all the time.

When fish is really fresh, it will not smell up your house. But even if you’re still nervous about that fishy smell, there are loads of ways to prepare fish and shellfish on the grill. But here is a basic method to prepare classic Boston Baked Cod. Give it a try on a busy weeknight with microwave steamed veggies and rice cooked on the stove; you’ll have dinner on the table in about 20 minutes.

Save this recipe: Roasted Cod with Lemon Parsley Crumbs

Photo by Fine Cooking

Robin Horrigan writes the column Cooking from the Carpool Lane. She lives on Boston’s south shore and is a stay at home Mom to Ryan, seven, and Maegan, three. Her fascination with cooking sprouted from watching Julia Child cook on a little black and white TV; Robin helped her Mom in the kitchen until she was old enough to ask Santa for her very own copy of The Joy of Cooking. She experiments with all kinds of cooking and baking, from quick weeknight dinners and easy cookies to long simmering weekend stews and complicated, fancy desserts. Ryan thinks if his Mom will ever be famous, it will be “for her awesome cookies.” Her friends say it will be for the cocktails. Either way, if she’s not doing volunteer work or shopping for shoes, you’ll probably find her in the kitchen.

1. Healthy Blueberry and Banana Muffins (Epicurious)
2. Easiest Spaghetti and Meatballs (Martha Stewart)
3. Chicken Tortilla Soup (Food Network)
4. Lighter Chicken Pot Pie (Martha Stewart)
5. Chicken Marbella (Simply Recipes)
6. Italian Baked Chicken and Pastina (Food Network)
7. Beef and Quinoa Meatballs (Whole Foods Market)
8. Broccoli Calzones (Martha Stewart)
9. Steak Fajitas (Real Simple)
10. Ravioli with Roasted Zucchini (Real Simple)
11. Sausage Ragout with Linguine (Epicurious)
12. Bean and Pasta Soup (Martha Stewart)
13. Honey Soy Chicken Thighs (custom)
14. Baked Garlic Parmesan Chicken (Allrecipes)
15. Bacon Wrapped Pork Loin with Cherries (Real Simple)
16. Spicy Shrimp and Bok Choy Noodle Bowl (Food Network)
17. Zucchini, Bacon, and Gruyere Quiche (Epicurious)
18. Soy Glazed Salmon (Martha Stewart)
19. Blueberry Zucchini Bread (Allrecipes)
20. Salmon Cakes (Food Network)

Top 5 Desserts

1. Mexican Chocolate Pudding Filled Cupcakes (Martha Stewart)
2. Tres Leches Cake (The Pioneer Woman)
3. Chocolate Puddle Cookies (101 Cookbooks)
4. Meyer Lemon Coffee Cake (Martha Stewart)
5. Molten Mocha Cakes (Martha Stewart)

Recently, a request for salad ideas came across the Plummelo radar (thanks, Melissa Boyd!). So we started hunting. And it has us inspired.

Today is looking to be a scorcher where we are–the kind of day where you want to get your outdoor activities in early and the kind of evening where you want to avoid baking yourself in the kitchen or sweating over the stove. The kind of night where you want to retreat to the patio after dusk with a glass of white that’s been chilling in the fridge. (Maybe even add an ice cube!)

What is the dinner solution for a hot summer night? We’re serving up salad. We found some great ideas. The bonus? You get your fill of fiber-rich, heart healthy veggies. (Okay, some of these salads have a few extra not-so-good-for-the-figure yummies like bacon and cheese, but everything in moderation, right?)

Photo from Epicurious

That was the usual routine in our house.

Under my roof there are two working parents and three active kids (one with food allergies, which made finding recipes often tricky), for a total of five hungry bodies. Preparing for dinner–from thinking about what we wanted to eat to making a shopping list to getting to the grocery store to starting to chop the vegetables–was never easy. The “process” was disorganized and disconnected.

When you love to eat and you want to cook a delicious, healthy meal for your family but you’re short on time, you need a solution. We were in desperate need of a more efficient meal planning, preparation, shopping, and cooking process from start to finish.

That, in short, is how Plummelo was born.

I’m not only the founder, but I’m also a daily user. Not to mock the Hair Club for Men slogan, but Plummelo fixed just about all of our former problems in meal planning.

Here are a few of the major hurdles my wife and I were encountering (pre-Plummelo):

Old problem: My recipes are scattered. Some in a recipe box, some in the pages of an old magazine, some in miscellaneous computer files, some in my head. If I found a recipe online, I had trouble finding it again. New solution: My recipes are all in one place. Not only are they categorized, tagged, and searchable, but I can rate the ones we love and delete the ones we don’t.

Old problem: The hardest part is figuring out what to cook this week. New solution: I can quickly browse my recipes, look at what other people on Plummelo are cooking, and get new ideas.

Old problems: Making a shopping list from my recipes takes too long. New solution: Now I don’t even have to write out the shopping list. I can drag and drop my recipes for the week into My Plans and Plummelo automatically populates a grocery list for me. My wife can hit “Email Shopping List” and it comes to my iPhone and I can pick up the groceries on my way home! (Note: iPhone app to come in 2010!)

There is so much more Plummelo will be doing to help connect more of your cooking world and keep your kitchen life organized.

Give Plummelo a try this week.