Orange ginger-glazed Cornish hens

But in my defense, my computer died in that time.

I'll share an old meal today, although it is one of my favorites: Orange ginger-glazed Cornish hens (pictured below)


We've made these a few times now. They're incredibly easy to make, but also one of the most seemingly decadent dishes. While this is not a 10 minute dish (some baking time involved!), ingredient assembly is quick and easy. The last time we made these, as pictured above, we even threw in a sprinkling of lavender on the hens before baking. While lavender can be overwhelmingly floral in many dishes (trust me on this, I've experimented enough to regret it!), it goes perfectly with the flavors in this one.

This dish comes in at 188 calories a hen-half, if you remove the skin. We rarely do, to be honest, because skin is delicious. This dinner ranks, for me, a perfect 10 on taste, an 8.5 on ease of prep, and an 8 on comfort. The comfort score is lower simply because of baking time, and the fact that there is no cheese in this meal (ridiculous!). The prep score is not a perfect 10 because I cannot deal with spines. Consequently, the boy has to hack these suckers in half for me before I get started with the cooking. The first time I tried to make these all on my own I nearly passed out because I had to maul the poor sweet little carcass. Cooking, I can do. Dealing with intact, yet delicious, little bird bodies, I cannot. In fact, the note in my cookbook next to this recipe explicitly reminds myself: "You still cannot do this alone! They have SPINES!!!".

And so it goes.