Every food blogger has their own reasons for engaging in the odd behaviors, rituals, and self-disciplines that go into maintaining an active food blog – apologizing to loved ones for consistently serving cold food because you needed time to photograph it, rarely cooking the same thing twice because you want to be able to make a post out of something new, timing each part of a recipe’s preparation, in order to give an accurate estimate of the preparation time – it’s all a bit nutty.

Some of us do it because it’s an escape – a place that is our on, but that we share with the thousands (millions?) of food blog readers, some hope to become famous food writers, and some, like me, enjoy the idea of keeping a flexible, updatable library of our favorite recipes (and, yes, I secretly dream of being a famous food writer, as well – with realistic expectations, of course.)

I’ve come to the realization lately that my farm share may be taking over not only my fridge, but also a large portion of my life. As one friend put it, “the pressure to consume” all of the wonderful veggies can be a bit overwhelming, and I did find, as I looked back through the latest Besotted posts that they almost exclusively dealt with vegetables – noble and lovely as they are, I started to feel that there was something a bit lacking.

I spent a couple of quiet hours on Sunday pouring through my cooking magazines and books and came up with a lot of happy inspiration for delicious (and omnivorous!) meals. And, to get the ball rolling, I decided to start-out with one of my favorite carnivorous meals – Fried Chicken.

When I graduated college and was living on my own, I was excited, yet trepidatious about cooking for myself. While my childhood had been spent baking, I didn’t know the first thing about savory cooking – how long does it take to cook a chicken, at what temperature, and how do you know when it’s done? It was all very confusing and frightening….

Then, I came across this recipe from Amanda Hesser in the New York Times for “Lemon Chicken.” It was an unassuming recipe with a nursery-school simple ingredient list. The only item throwing me for a loop was crème Fraiche. I knew not what it was, but was willing to give it a shot…..

I know what you’re thinking…. that picture above is NOT a Week-night meal, but bear with me….

This ricotta-stuffed chicken takes about 1 hour from grocery bag to dinner table, and half of that time it’s in the oven, while you can unwind from the day, grab a glass of wine, surf Facebook, or do any of the other rituals that cue the end of the work day, and that are so essential for our nightly relaxation.

For me, I would typically come home from work and begin the dish almost as soon as I walked in the door; once in the oven, I would go take a nice hot shower to relax, and by the time I got out, the chicken was just about ready to come out of the oven. It was a perfect.