Retired flight attendant Cathy Ratigan teaches at Peachtree Presbyterian Preschool in Atlanta.
Ratigan and her husband have three grown sons, who, along with their wives, often join them for family meals.
“That means I’m cooking for eight now,” Ratigan said. “It’s not all the time, but I love when we can do it.”
On the nights when she’s cooking just for two, Ratigan tends to make meals that are simple and nutritious.
“When I grew up, you always had to have a starch,” she said. “Potatoes, rice, noodles. And, when my boys were home, I needed that to fill them up. But, we’ve changed our eating habits. We discovered that a meat and vegetable is all you really need.”
Staples include salmon, shrimp, pork tenderloin and chicken, plus “the occasional hamburger.”
Credit: Megan Ratigan
Credit: Megan Ratigan
And, like many others, the Ratigans like to cook on their Big Green Egg, whenever they can. “We use it a lot,” she said.
A longtime favorite recipe for Big Green Egg evenings is what Ratigan calls Durkee grilled chicken, made with Durkee Famous Sauce.
“It’s the easiest,” she said. “I have had the recipe forever. If you’ve seen it, it’s just putting Durkee on chicken. You could do it in the oven, but you want to do it on the grill.”
Ratigan likes to serve the chicken with roasted sweet potatoes, drizzled with cinnamon and honey.
“We grow sweet potatoes at school for our outdoor classroom,” she said. “I came up with this recipe to ensure that the children would eat them, and they absolutely loved them. They get almost candied on the outside.”
Ratigan reckons that, more than anything else, her sons influenced her cooking, but that continues to change.
“I guess my cooking is pretty basic, because my boys were a little picky growing up, so I just tried to fix kind of plain, good food,” she said. “I’m not a fancy cook, but I enjoy cooking, and do cook healthier than I used to.”
Serve the chicken and sweet potatoes together with a salad for an easy, crowd-pleasing dinner.
Read more stories like this by liking Atlanta Restaurant Scene on Facebook, following @ATLDiningNews on Twitter and @ajcdining on Instagram.
About the Author
