Yummy Chicken (or turkey) Stock

You hear about the benefits of chicken stock, both nutritional and culinary, almost everywhere you look. I tried for years to make it part of my arsenal but I had some kind of mental block and never succeeded in making a stock that I thought tasted any good at all. I would try to hide it in things so I couldn't taste it. I was very happy to finally figure out how the heck to make good tasting stock, so I will share it with you!

YUMMY CHICKEN (OR TURKEY) STOCK



ingredients:
1 whole chicken OR 2 whole turkey legs (thighs + drumsticks)
2-3 chicken feet, scored, optional
any extra leftover bones you have kicking around, optional
1 carrot, cut into 1-in chunks
2 stalks of celery, cut into 1-in chunks
1 onion, quartered
handful of fresh parsley
10-15 peppercorns

Put the chicken or turkey in a stockpot and cover with water. Bring up to a simmer and then discard the now scummy water. Cover the bird with water again and this time add in all the other ingredients. Bring to a boil and skim off any foam/scum that rises to the top. Lower to a bare bubble and cook for 2 hours. You don't want the stock boiling because it will make the meat very tough, so make sure it really is a bare bubble. After 2 hours, fish the chicken or turkey out of the pot and pull all the meat off the bones and save it for later. Return the bones/cartilage/skin/etc to the pot and cook for another 2 hours. Strain, bottle, and refrigerate. If you're lucky it will turn to jello in the fridge!

-------

The key to this, I think, is the initial discarding of the water and cooking the meat with the bones for the first bit so that the stock gets a much meatier, nicer flavor. If you cook the meat too long though it won't taste very good, so that's why you take it out halfway through and then continue cooking the bones to get some more goodness out of them. I've also found this particular blend of veggies to be pretty yummy.

Primal Challenge Day 2

I think I'm going to do most measurements weekly rather than daily, but I will track my weight daily.

weight: 135 lbs (-1.4)

breakfast: none


lunch:
salad - escarole, radicchio, endive, carrots, celery, cucumbers, bacon, balsamic vinegar, extra virgin olive oil
topped with leftover steak from last night's dinner
roasted unsalted almonds
primal limeade - water, lime juice, stevia


snack:
chai - coconut chai teabag, heavy cream, stevia
homemade beef jerky
1 oz cheddar cheese


dinner:
barbecue skillet - onions and cabbage browned in ghee, kielbasa, chicken, pinch of bbq rub, 2T of bbq sauce, topped with shredded cheddar


dessert:
baked raspberries and peaches topped with grated dark chocolate and mint leaves; I used a 6oz container of raspberries and 1 peach for 2 people

exercise:
4.3 miles of strenuous walking, part of it uphill. Really got my heart rate up and the sweat was pouring off me!

Coconut chicken fingers with spicy fruit chutney

One of the foods my husband and I really miss on the paleo or primal diet is breaded chicken. It's just soul satisfying comfort food for both of us. I do make a gluten free, grain free version of chicken fingers with almond flour sometimes, but tonight I thought I'd try something different. Keeping with the coconut theme I've had lately, I decided to dredge the chicken in unsweetened dried shredded coconut. I didn't want them to be naked, so I wanted to make a sauce, but pan sauce or gravy didn't seem right - so I decided to make a spicy fruit chutney. The result is a tropical dish that's just right for these hot summer evenings!



COCONUT CHICKEN FINGERS
serves 2

ingredients:
1-1.5 lbs boneless skinless chicken breast cut into large strips (4-5 per breast depending on if they have the tenders attached or not)
2-3 T coconut flour
1-2 eggs, beaten (start with 1 and use the second if you start to run out)
1 cup unsweetened dried shredded coconut
1 tsp sea salt
coconut oil for cooking

Set up a dredging station with 3 bowls, one for coconut flour, one for egg, one for shredded coconut. Season the coconut flour with the salt.

Dredge each chicken finger first in coconut flour, then egg, then shredded coconut.

Heat a bunch of coconut oil in a large heavy bottomed skillet over medium/medium-high heat. Cook the chicken fingers until golden brown on each side. Do it in more than one batch if necessary and keep cooked chicken fingers warm on a foil lined baking sheet in an oven set to the lowest setting.

------------------

SPICY FRUIT CHUTNEY
serves 4

2 cups of diced and peeled plums or nectarines or a mixture of the two
1/4 cup lemon juice
juice of 1/2 a lime
1/4 cup chopped dried apricots
2 inches of ginger root, peeled and minced
2 small dried red chili peppers (or 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper)
1 cinnamon stick
1/4 cup sweet white wine
pinch of sea salt
pinch of stevia, optional depending on if your fruit is really sour (taste before you add!)

Mix everything together in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil, lower heat, and simmer uncovered for 30 minutes until thick. Discard dried chilis and cinnamon stick. Can be eaten warm or cold.

Recipe adapted from The Garden of Eating.

One Local Summer - Week Three

This week for One Local Summer I had a near miss that turned into a delicious hit! I love making great tasting food that's from local producers and also healthy and paleo - gluten and dairy free.



The star of dinner tonight was a roasted chicken from Polyface Farms. I rinsed and dried the chicken and then generously salted and peppered it inside and out. The outside I wrapped in bacon from EcoFriendly Foods and the inside I stuffed with two of the season's first peaches from Westmoreland Berry Farm. Into the oven at 425 for 30 minutes, then I reduced the heat to 350 and roasted it for an additional hour.

The plan was to end up with delicious bacon-wrapped chicken and some roasty peach chunks. My oven had other plans!

Now, I've made bacon wrapped chicken before and it's always turned out, but this time for some reason the bacon shriveled to itty bitty bacon cinders and became inedible. So not only did I have burned bacon, but I had flabby chicken skin. Erg. I removed the peaches from the chicken and noticed they were not roasty at all either. My plans had been foiled, but I thought there had to be some way to salvage this food. After a moment's pondering I set the bacon cinders aside and carved the chicken into two leg quarters, two breasts, and two wings. I put the chicken pieces on a foil lined baking sheet and put them back in the oven to turn the flabby skin crispy. What to do with the peaches...aha! Gravy!

To make the gravy, I took the peaches from the chicken cavity and heated them in a small saucepan with a good spoonful of drippings from the roasting pan and 1/4 cup sweet white wine from Rose Bank Winery along with a pinch of salt and about 1 inch of cinnamon stick. I put the heat to low, covered it, and let it simmer while I went to work on the veggie sides. I don't know if Rose Bank Winery can be considered local to northern Virginia, but we used to live about 3 minutes away from this winery and we bought a whole case of the wine that we're still working on! So it was local to us at one point. :)

To get our leafy greens in for the day I made some braised kale from Pleasant Fields Farm. First I sauteed some baby onions from our CSA in the chicken/bacon drippings, then added the kale and a little water, covered, and let it braise for about 15 minutes.

To add some freshness to the meal, I made a quick cucumber salad using crispy little Persian cucumbers from Toigo Orchards. They are so snappy and delicious! I tossed them with some chopped orange mint from Red Rake Farm, a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, and a splash of rice vinegar. Red Rake Farm is one of my favorite stands at the Arlington Farmer's Market. It's all organic and their produce looks more "real" to me than some of the other places for some reason. And the owner, Peter, is always ready with a smile and story. Much nicer than shopping at a grocery store!



Once the veggies were ready, the chicken skin was crispy and the peaches were nice and broken down for the gravy, and dinner was served! I think everything tied together very nicely - the crispy chicken skin with the sweet warm peach gravy, the tender kale, and the cool fresh cucumbers. My husband even ate the bacon cinders and said they kind of tasted like pork rinds. Success!

Chicken and Kale Sofrito (aka kale con pollo)

Ok, I know it's not much of an excuse, but I haven't been posting because I lost my camera. Again. I visited my family and left my camera in the back of my mom's car. I just don't like doing blog posts without pictures! They're the best part!

I've also been experimenting with a very high fat/very moderate protein diet (The Optimal Diet by Dr. Jan Kwasniewski, aka "Polish Atkins") and I've been eating dairy for the past two weeks, so you probably didn't want to hear about what I was eating anyway. ;) I think my experiment with that is over...I did lose a pound or two, but I forgot how oogy dairy makes me feel.

Anyway, here is a nice dinner you can make. The recipe is just a loose guideline; this is really a dish you just want to feel out.



CHICKEN AND KALE SOFRITO (aka kale con pollo)

I love watching Daisy Martinez's cooking show on PBS, and I kind of made this up based on general principles from her style of Puerto Rican cooking.

First of all, you have to make Daisy's sofrito and her achiote oil, which you can find here http://www.daisycooks.com/pages/recipes_detail.cfm?ID=1 and here http://www.daisycooks.com/pages/recipes_detail.cfm?ID=2 Sofrito is a wonderful fresh sauce/condiment made out of onions, peppers, tomatoes, garlic, cilantro, etc. The recipe makes a ton, but it freezes well. Achiote oil is just extra virgin olive oil gently warmed with annatto seeds until it becomes a deep amber color and picks up the flavor of the seeds.

Puerto Rican cooking would traditionally use rice as the base for this dish (arroz con pollo), but since this is paleo we're talking about here, I used a base of shredded kale instead. I just used one bunch of dino kale cut very finely.

So here are the ingredients for two people:
4 T achiote oil, divided
1 lb chicken drumsticks
salt and pepper
1/2 cup sofrito
jarred olive salad (mixed olives with roasted peppers, seasonings, etc)
jarred capers
one bunch of kale, shredded

Heat 2 T achiote oil, salt and pepper the chicken, and brown well on all sides. Remove the chicken from the pan.

Reduce the heat to medium and add the sofrito to the pan, deglazing with the juices. Add the remaining 2 T achiote oil and let the liquid cook off until the sofrito starts to sizzle. Add in some olive salad and capers to taste and a little of the olive salad liquid. Add the kale to the pan and stir to coat.

Nestle the chicken on top of the kale, put a lid on the pan, lower the heat, and cook for 10 minutes. In the last 5 minutes of cooking, heat the broiler up. Once the chicken and kale has steamed for 10 minutes, put the whole pan under the broiler for 4-5 minutes to crisp the skin up.

-------------------------

My husband declared this the best chicken I've ever made. Hopefully it has inspired you to make something delicious with sofrito as well!

Adventures in leftovers - Paleo Chicken Croquettes

I roasted a whole chicken and the hubby and I ate the breasts and wings with all the yummy crispy skin, which left us the leg quarters as leftovers. Now, I'm always stymied when it comes to leftover dark meat. I like chicken legs when they're still hot, but when you use them for leftovers in the old standards (chicken salad, fajitas, soup) they have a texture I find unappealing. I was flipping through some old cookbooks and I found a recipe for cooked chicken called chicken croquettes, which are basically meatballs made with cooked chicken meat. Perfect for my texture problems! The only problem is that traditional croquettes are held together with bechemal sauce (flour, butter, and milk/cream) and bread crumbs, and the outsides are usually breaded as well. I was undeterred and decided to come up with a paleo version. Now, I've never had a real croquette so I don't know how my version compares to the "real" one, but I thought these were pretty darn tasty. I spiced mine up with some Southwestern seasonings, but these are unnecessary to the overall dish.



Paleo Chicken Croquettes

Start these a few hours or the day before you want to eat as the mixture needs to chill in the fridge. Makes approximately 12 croquettes.

ingredients:
2 leftover chicken leg quarters, skinned and meat torn off the bones (save the bones for soup stock!)
1/2 a small onion
1/2 - 1 cup of mushrooms
2 T mayonnaise (I think really thick coconut milk would probably work as well...you know, the solid stuff that sits on top of the liquid in the can)
1 chipotle pepper canned in adobo, minced
1/2 - 1 tsp adobo seasoning (basically a mixture of salt, garlic powder, and cumin)
1 egg
olive oil

Pulse the onion and mushroom in a food processor until very finely chopped. These are standing in for your bread crumbs. Heat up a little olive oil in a skillet and gently saute the mushroom/onion mixture until it is cooked through and starting to brown.

Meanwhile, put the cooked chicken meat in the food processor and pulse until it starts to kind of look like bread crumbs. Add the mayonnaise, chipotle pepper, adobo seasoning, and egg and pulse to combine. Add the cooked onion/mushroom mixture and pulse to combine again. Scoop the chicken mixture into a container with a lid and refrigerate for 2 hours or overnight.

When the time comes for cooking, heat some olive oil up in a skillet. Using two spoons, scoop up the chicken mixture and shape it into quenelles. Don't know what I'm talking about? Here's a link that explains how to make a quenelle: http://www.chefspencil.com/recipes/NDUy/QuenellesHowTo.aspx Why do I do it this way? Well, three reasons. The first one is that I don't have to get my hands dirty. The second is that it looks really nice. And the third is that it makes it very easy to brown the meatballs evenly on three sides. Anyway, just brown your croquettes/quenelles on all three sides and set on a paper towel lined plate to drain. Enjoy!

Almond Crusted Chicken Fingers

Sometimes you just want some nasty old fried chicken fingers, but as a rule they are flour-coated transfat-laden monstrosities. How to enjoy the crunch without all the badness? Almond flour!

serves 2

ingredients:
2 boneless skinless chicken breasts, sliced into fingers
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup almond flour
1/2 tsp sea salt
1.5 tsp poultry seasoning
1 tsp dry mustard powder
1/4 - 1/3 cup oil for frying (I used palm oil shortening, but I wouldn't hesitate to use olive oil or coconut oil either - or lard if I had it!)

Heat the oil a large pan over medium-high heat (but closer to medium than to high - you don't want the almond flour to burn).

Put the beaten egg in one bowl and the almond flour plus seasonings into another bowl. Dip each chicken finger in egg, then in the almond flour mixture.

Cook the chicken in two batches until it is golden on each side.

----------

Notes:

I've only ever made this fresh for dinner so I don't know if it would keep well for lunches or not. I suspect it might get a little gummy.

Crushed pork rinds also make a decent bread crumb substitute but they get soggy very quickly after cooking so you must eat them immediately. Also, some people are kind of squicked by pork rinds.

These chicken fingers are great for dipping too. Good options are ketchup or flavored mayonnaise. If you want to get super fancy, you can make something like date mustard, but I don't make this all the time because, even though it is amazingly delicious, it's also quite carb heavy. I might do a proper post on date mustard sometime, but here is the quick and dirty version:

happy shiny bonus date mustard recipe!
1/2 cup dates with pits removed, 2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil, 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar, 1/2 cup water, 1 tsp salt, and 2 T prepared mustard; put all the ingredients in a blender and let it rip until it's smooth; pour into a small saucepan and simmer gently for 10 minutes; serve warm or cold. I got this fantastic condiment from a cookbook called The Philosopher's Kitchen.

Green Chicken

This is a staple for lunch around here. I'll make several days' worth at one time, slice it, and keep it in the fridge to toss on top of big lunchtime salads. It's easy and delicious! I can kind of tell you how to make it, but I don't have an exact recipe. It only takes about 15 minutes from start to finish.

ingredients:
boneless skinless chicken breast
extra virgin olive oil
salt-free herbal seasoning blend (I use "all purpose seasoning" from the Simply Organic line of spices, but any mix will work)
pinch of sea salt

Heat the broiler, line a baking sheet with foil, and position a rack over the pan.

Remove the tenders from the breasts and thinly slice them. You can slice the breasts into 2 or 3 slices depending on how thin you like them.

Take a small bowl and glug some olive oil into it. Add a pinch of salt and enough dried herbs to make a thick paste. Drag the breast slices and tenders through the herb paste and coat both sides.

Place the chicken on the rack and broil for 8 minutes on one side. It will cook completely through and the side facing up with get a crust.

Remove from oven, let cool, slice, and store.

Chicken Saltimbocca and Braised Escarole

serves 2

Chicken:
2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
fresh sage leaves
1/4 lb thinly sliced prosciutto ham
olive oil

for pan sauce:
1/3 cup dry white wine
1/4 cup chicken broth
1 tsp arrowroot dissolved in 1 tsp cold water

Take your chicken breasts and slice them as thinly as you possibly can. If you can't slice them thin enough by hand or if your knife is not sharp enough, then just slice them as thin as they'll go and then pound them to 1/4 inch thickness or less. I got 4-5 thin slices out of each breast.

Lay your chicken pieces out and top each slice with several whole fresh sage leaves. Place a slice of prosciutto on top of each piece of chicken and pat it down so it adheres to the chicken.

Heat olive oil in a cast iron skillet over medium high heat. You want the pan pretty hot so that it will brown the meat without overcooking it (since it's so thin). Cook the chicken in batches, starting prosciutto side UP first. This will let the chicken contract a little without the prosciutto shrinking. Flip the chicken and let the prosciutto side cook until it looks crispy. Remove to a plate and finish up the rest of the chicken in the same manner, adding more olive oil to the pan if necessary.

Once all the chicken is done, add the white wine and chicken broth to the pan and deglaze by scraping the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon. Once the liquid has reduced a little, stir in the arrowroot/cold water slurry and stir quickly to thicken. Serve the sauce over the chicken.

Escarole:
1/2 head of escarole, chopped and washed
2 T raisins
1/4 cup pine nuts
pinch of sea salt
1/3 cup white wine or chicken broth
olive oil
2 cloves of garlic

Heat a glug of oil over medium heat and add the whole garlic cloves. Once the garlic starts sizzling, add the escarole, raisins, pine nuts, salt, and liquid. Cover the pan, reduce the heat, and braise for 10 minutes. Remove the cover and let the liquid cook off. This results in plump raisins, but the pine nuts get kind of plump and soft too. If that's not to your taste, you can leave the pine nuts out and toast them in a skillet or toaster oven and then add them to the dish at the last minute.

Coconut Chicken Curry

serves 2

Coconut chicken curry over zucchini noodles. I used to do something similar using a prepackaged curry paste, but I tried making my own and it turned out even better and had no iffy ingredients. :)

curry:
3 T coconut oil
1 small onion, thinly sliced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 inch of ginger root, minced
2 T salt free curry powder
1 cinnamon stick
5 small dried red chilis
1 heaping T tomato paste
sea salt and pepper to taste
1 large carrot, thickly sliced
1/4 small head of green cabbage, chopped
1 can coconut milk
1 cup chicken broth
2 chicken breasts, cut into chunks
1 cup frozen okra*
juice of 1 lime

Heat the oil in a deep skillet and fry the onions, garlic, and ginger until soft. Add the curry, cinnamon, chilis, tomato paste, salt/pepper and saute until fragrant. Add the coconut milk, broth, carrot, and cabbage and simmer uncovered for 20 minutes to thicken. Add the chicken, okra, and 1/2 the lime juice and simmer uncovered for 10-15 minutes. Taste and adjust seasonings with salt/lime juice.

*Okra seems like an acquired taste, but it's one that both my husband and I love. Okra has a unique thickening property though, so if you want to make this without the okra it might turn out a little runnier.

noodles:
2 small zucchinis

Put the zucchinis through a spiralizer (or julienne them with a knife or mandoline). Put in a microwave safe container with a lid and microwave for 2 minutes. If you don't use a microwave, you can steam them for a few minutes or saute them in another skillet. You just want to soften them a little.

-----

I based my recipe off of this one from the Food Network: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tyler-florence/spicy-chicken-coconut-curry-recipe/index.html

Chicken Kabobs

Sorry for the blurry picture. My flash washes things out and sometimes pics without the flash don't turn out very well. :(

So this is more of a meal idea than an actual recipe. I had some tahini sauce leftover from our lamb meatballs from last night, and I had some bland old chicken breast sitting in the fridge, so I decided to combine them. I cubed up the chicken and tossed it in a plastic bag with whatever Mediterranean-y stuff I found in the kitchen...olive oil, red wine vinegar, sea salt, oregano, onion powder, garlic powder, paprika, cumin. I didn't measure anything. I bet this would be great with just about anything you put in there. I let the chicken marinate for about 45 minutes and then I broiled it for 15 minutes. It was very good dipped into the leftover tahini sauce. For a side dish I put a zucchini through a spiralizer to make it like noodles and sauteed it in olive oil for about 10 minutes while the chicken was broiling.