Ew.

Last night was one of those nights where Luke worked late and I cooked dinner for him. As soon as I saw it at the store (two weeks ago), I knew it'd have to be a Thursday night surprise dinner, and that he would love it. He did. Last night was the first time I've ever made cornish game hen.

And it totally grossed me out! I'm not a big meat person, and I especially don't like having to handle it when it's raw- and this was beyond mere handling: I had to pry the skin from the meat, and shove herbs in the space I'd made; then from the outside, I had to rub the skin in order to spread the herbs around in the breast. It was all very cold and slimy and gross.

This picture cracks me up.

In the under-skin cavity, I put about 1 1/2 tablespoons of a mixture of fresh rosemary, thyme, pepper, and olive oil. Then I basted them with butter, salt and peppered them, and put them in the oven at 400 degrees for an hour.

And they came out looking picture-perfect. They tasted really good, too: good mixture of flavors, tender, moist. Luke liked them as much as I thought he would (he likes eating things that make him feel like he's in the middle ages). But I don't like picking meat off bones, or shoving herbs under pimply chicken skin, or massaging raw chicken breasts, so unless he makes them, we'll probably never have these again.