Chicken Couscous Salad

 

This recipe, from my friend Jen, was inspired by a recipe she found in an old Cooking Light magazine.  It makes an excellent quick lunch or accompaniment to a Mediterranean feast of hummus, pita, and raw veggies.  Make a double or triple batch, because it goes quickly!

 

Salad:

 

1 ¼ cups chicken bone broth

6 ounces couscous (I’m substituting quinoa when I make it later this week)

1 ½ cups cooked chicken, shredded or cubed

½ cup sliced scallions

½ cup diced radishes

½ cup chopped, seeded cucumber

¼ cup chopped flat-leaf parsley

2 tablespoons toasted pine nuts

 

Dressing:

 

¼ cup rice vinegar

1 ½ tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon ground cumin

½ teaspoon finely ground sea salt

¼ teaspoon fresh ground pepper

3 minced garlic cloves

 

1. To prepare salad, bring broth to a boil in a medium saucepan; gradually stir in couscous.  Remove from heat; cover and let stand 5 minutes.  Fluff with fork.  Spoon couscous into a large bowl; cool slightly.  Add chicken, onions, radishes, cucumber, parsley, and pine nuts to couscous; toss gently to combine.

 

2. To prepare dressing, combine vinegar and remaining ingredients, stirring with a wisk.  Drizzle dressing over salad; toss to combine. 

 

Additional notes:

 

Sometimes I add dried cranberries if I’m eating the salad by itself.  To stretch it, you can add more couscous.  I hope you enjoy it!

 

 

For more recipes and tips on bone broth, visit Cheeseslave for Real Food Wednesday.  Or for more recipes in general, visit the Grocery Cart Challenge Recipe Swap.

 

Chicken Tortilla Soup

Just so you know, this is one of my all-time favorite soups.  It can be modified to be completely vegan (although I prefer it with cheese on top) or loaded with lots of chicken.  I will start with a recipe for how I made mine last night, detailing other substitutions I’ve made below.

 

Chicken Tortilla Soup

 

1 tbsp olive oil

1 small onion, diced

1 jalapeno, finely diced (seeds = heat, so remove seeds if you don’t like it hot)

3 cloves of garlic, minced

2 tsp chili powder

2 quarts vegetable broth

2 cups crushed tomatoes

3 cups black beans, cooked

1 cup chicken, cooked and shredded

2 cups corn, frozen (use fresh when in season)

¼ cup fresh cilantro

 

Suggested toppings:

 

Tortilla chips

Grated cheese (I like pepper jack – adds even more spice!) or crème fraîche

Sliced avocado

Chopped scallions

 

1.  In a dutch oven/stock pot/whatever you make soup in, heat the olive oil on medium.  When hot, add onion and jalapeno, sautéing until onion changes color.  Add garlic and sauté a little longer, being sure not to burn garlic.  Then add broth and crushed tomatoes and bring to a boil.

 

2.  Once it comes to a boil, add beans, chicken, corn and cilantro and heat through.  Since I used precooked ingredients (all leftovers!), this was all quick and easy.

 

3.  Top with your choice of toppings and serve!

 

 

This batch is on the brothier side because I don’t measure.

 

Now here are my copious notes – I have been making this for a long time, so I kind of have a lot to say. J

 

-         I make at least one large batch of beans every week for various meals.  Often I have a little more than I need, so I freeze the cooked beans in three cup portions so I can just thaw them in the refrigerator as needed.  You could also use canned beans or turn this into a slow cooker meal to cook it from dried beans and uncooked chicken.  Just don’t add the corn until close to the end or it will get mushy.

 

-         I’ve made this using boneless, skinless breasts before, but it’s more expensive that way – which is why I just cook a whole chicken now and portion out the meat.  Just sauté the chicken with the onion and jalapeno if using uncooked chicken.

 

-         Fire-roasted corn is great in here, too.  Many months from now, when fresh corn is easy to come by locally, just roast some on your grill and cut it off the cob to add in.

 

-         For a milder flavor, use a milder pepper than the jalapeno.  Or use a 4 ounce can of chopped green chiles.

 

-         For a beanier soup, omit the chicken and substitute the chicken for some pinto beans.  I would switch to bone broth for more nutrition, too.

 

-         In the summer, roasted red bell peppers are a great addition, too.

 

I’m sure there’s more, but I’ll have to add to it later.  Let me know if you make any fun substitutions!

 

This recipe was submitted to the Grocery Cart Challenge Recipe Swap.

Why Roasting A Whole Chicken Rocks

It’s been a busy week, so luckily I’ve been able to get by eating leftovers.  I had to roast my chicken tonight, though, or else it would’ve gone bad and I wouldn’t have been able to make broth for other meals!

 

I’m pretty new to this buying –a-whole-chicken-and-stretching –it sort of thing.  My years of vegetarianism have given me an aversion to raw meat that I just can’t shake.  Nonetheless, I stand by the frugality and superior nutrition of buying a whole chicken and making homemade broth.  It is so much cheaper than buying boneless, skinless breasts and cartons of “broth” – especially since the stuff they’re calling broth is really full of chemicals and additives.  Yes, even the organic, free-range stuff is – just check out the ingredient list for the stuff I used to buy a 12-pack of at Costco.  Also, once you taste real broth, the boxed stuff will smell strange to you.  Or worse – it won’t smell like food at all.  I speak from personal experience here. J

 

First, here is how I roast chicken:

 

After rinsing and drying the whole chicken, take the giblet pack out of the cavity.  Eew!  I really have to talk myself through these first few steps!  Inside the cavity, I stuff in some chopped carrots, celery, onion, and rosemary.  Garlic would be good, too, but today I forgot.  Then I squeeze some fresh lemon juice into the cavity, and lay the bird down into the roasting pan.  Add olive oil and some water to the roasting pan – not too much, you don’t want to boil or steam it – then add some chopped potatoes and more chopped carrots to the pan.  Top it all with generous sprinklings of your favorite poultry spices – I used salt, pepper, sage, marjoram, and thyme – and cook it in a 375 degree oven until it reaches an internal temperature of 165 degrees.  Here is a picture of the whole set-up before being cooked:

 

 

Then take off the lid and let it brown and crispify (I just made up that word) to your liking.  Not too long, of course, since you don’t want to be left with a dry bird.  Here is where I’m supposed to insert an after cooking picture, but somehow that one is not showing up on the memory card.  So you’ll have to use your imagination.  It did taste pretty yummy, though, and I think my dinner guests would affirm.  Let’s just see if she leaves a comment…

 

After a lovely roasted chicken dinner, collect all the bones and other inedibles and throw them into a slow cooker.  You’ll probably have some good chicken leftover, too, so just remove all of it from the bones and store accordingly.  I’ve planned this week’s meals around the leftovers, but I should still have a whole meal portion left even after that (I typically get about four meals out of a whole chicken) that will go in the freezer or get made into chicken salad for lunch.  I’m not much of a chicken eater (go figure!), so I’ll probably just freeze it. 

 

After all the bones are in the crock pot, fill it with water and turn it onto the high setting until it starts to boil.  Then turn it down to low and let it go overnight.  In the morning, turn it off and let it cool first to room temperature, then put it in the refrigerator to solidify the fat.  The fat can then be skimmed off and used in cooking or simply discarded.  I go with option number two.  Divide the broth into whatever portions fit your needs – for me, it’s about two cups – and freeze for future use.  Unless you will be using them within a few days, like I will with the Chicken Tortilla Soup I’m making tomorrow.

 

I paid $4.60 for this chicken from Whole Foods – they had a special last week where it was 99 cents/pound.  Four meals’ worth of chicken and four meal-sized servings of bone broth is an awesome value for this price!  It was a great value even when I paid $15 for my local chicken, so there is no way I can go back to buying chicken and broth the old way.  Now I just have to get a certain friend of mine to start raising chickens…

Curried Chicken and Quinoa with Chard and Sweet Potatoes

 

This is easy week.  So if you’re looking for something elaborate, this is not it.  Very tasty, though, which is all that counts.  The prep was all done ahead whenever I found time, and putting it together was easy.  This is the basic timeline:

 

In the morning:

 

Soak three cups quinoa in almost twice as much water, plus add a swig of raw apple cider vinegar to help break down the saponins.  You could soak it overnight, but I wanted a sturdier grain with more of a couscous texture – unfortunately, I cooked it a little too long and it turned to mush anyway.  On the plus side, quinoa is a quick sprouter, so at least the nutrition is enhanced.

 

Slice chicken (I used boneless, skinless breasts, but any part would work well) and marinate in raw apple cider vinegar (still on the counter from earlier!), toasted sesame oil, and curry masala powder.  Store in the refrigerator until later.

 

About an hour before dinner:

 

Drain and rinse quinoa and put into a dutch oven with fresh water.  Bring to a boil, then let simmer until the water is absorbed, stirring periodically.  If you add too much water or cook it too long, it turns into mush (like mine did tonight!), but the leftovers can be eaten for breakfast.

 

Chop sweet potatoes into cubes and coat in olive oil.  Place in an even layer on cookie sheets.  Roast at 375 degrees until pleasantly browned.  I also cut a butternut squash in half and roasted it along with the sweet potatoes – this will probably end up being for my 1-year old.

 

Rinse chard well.  Because I want to puke anytime I taste a rogue grain of dirt, I like to give leafy things a quick rinse under the water in the sink, then submerse them in a bowl of water for ten minutes, then thoroughly rinse each leaf under the sink water again.  This is not as labor-intensive as it sounds, and it’s MUCH better than biting into dirt.

 

Cut chard into bite-sized pieces and spin in a salad spinner.  Sauté in a tablespoon of olive oil – I used this citrusy olive oil from my hometown –

 

 

with a clove or two of minced garlic and some sea salt.  This cooks quickly, so I just pulled it out after it wilted enough and cooked the chicken in the same pan.  The chicken also cooks quickly because I cut it into small pieces.

This might seem like a lot of steps, but I cooked large batches of everything but the chicken.  I will use the extra sweet potatoes and chard in some black bean soup, and the quinoa will be tomorrow’s porridge.  If it had turned out better, it would’ve shown up at dinner again later in the week.  Oh well – it’s not a complete disaster!

Mediterranean Chicken Pasta

I’m still trying to move stuff off of my recipes page in favor of easier navigation, so I’m reposting this.  I’ll upload a picture soon, too.

 

This is a staple in our house.  You can use stuff you have in your pantry or buy fresh ingredients, so it’s really flexible.  Also, it tastes just as good without the feta cheese garnish, so it is a good choice for those who can’t have dairy products. 

 

This was found on Allrecipes more than five years ago, but it’s not there anymore.  So here is my version of…

 

Mediterranean Chicken

 

1 pkg spinach fettucine, cooked according to package directions
1/2 lb – 1 lb chicken breast
3-6 slices of bacon
1 cup of diced tomatoes (or can of diced Italian-style tomatoes)
1/3 cup sliced black olives, deseeded
½ cup (or more if you like) of artichoke hearts
fresh rosemary
feta cheese

 

1.     Cook bacon in a skillet; when done, remove bacon and cook chicken in same skillet. Add tomatoes, olives, artichoke hearts, and rosemary, and heat through.

 

2.     Combine above mixture with pasta and crumbled bacon. Toss together and serve. Add feta and a spring of rosemary for garnish.

 

I made this at a friend’s house tonight so we could make our weekly batch of bread.  It was a hit!  It usually is, though, unless somebody doesn’t like one of the ingredients.  It’s great meatless, too, with some extra cheese. 

Fab Stock in the Crock Pot

I always read about people simmering vegetables and/or bones on the stove all day to make stock, but that just seems like one more thing for me to have to babysit.  And if you know me at all, the LAST thing I’m looking for is one more thing to babysit! (As my BFF Tricia would say — I’m only 30% joking.)  The solution: why not try the slow cooker?

 

I had a bunch of spent vegetables and a chicken carcass left over from Sunday night’s dinner, so I threw them all into the pot and covered it all with water.  I started it on high around noon on Tuesday, then I switched it down to low before I went to bed that night.  Wednesday morning, I turned it off and let it cool, then I divided it into usable portions to freeze for future use.  Two of the portions are in quart-sized freezer bags, and the other two are in plastic storage cups.  This was my first time making stock, so I wasn’t sure what the best way to go about storage was.  Any ideas?  I’d like to do something eco-friendly (meaning not disposable) and preferably not made out of plastic.  Are there any inexpensive glass storage containers for the freezer?  I will have to do some research.

 

That local chicken turned out to be a great deal.  The $15 spent on a whole chicken seems like a great value when you look at everything I got out of it:

 

* Four meal-sized servings of stock — $8 value if I were to buy the organic, free-range stock at the store

 

* Four chicken meals (the Sunday roast, the enchiladas, plus two servings to freeze) — $16 value if I were to buy high quality boneless, skinless chicken breast at the store

 

…the verdict: I saved $9 over buying this stuff at the store!  My local chicken (which was raised in a sustainable, Joel Salatin-style fashion) is a great deal.  Even if it wasn’t, it’s still more nutritious than those factory farm chickens, and the bone broth derived from it will do much better in terms of taste AND nutrition.

 

The only downer: we won’t be able to get any more chickens until spring.  Eating seasonally has a few drawbacks, but none that are deal-breakers.  So I’ll still buy chicken from Whole Foods over the next few months.

Blustery Fall Days

Why I enjoy living in Georgia:

 

1)  The seasons actually change.  I don’t remember the range of colors on the falling leaves being as brilliant during my 25 years growing up in California. 

 

2)  I’ve met some AMAZING people here who have inspired me in many areas of my life.

 

Hmm…I was hoping this list would be more impressive.  It means a lot to have great friends, though!

 

I’ve been really busy in the kitchen the last few days.  I finally got around to preparing the chicken I ordered from a local farm — it was (humanely) slaughtered on Friday, so I roasted it for Sunday dinner and made some mashed potatoes, gravy, and sauteed green beans.  I forgot to take a picture of the entire chicken, but here is what Husband’s plate looked like:

 

 

Not a very colorful picture, but there were some carrots, too, that were roasted inside the chicken.  It effortlessly fell off the bone, but next time I’m going to try for a crispier skin. 

 

This was my first time roasting chicken, so it was a strange experience for me.  (Being a vegetarian for a large part of my life, I’m still learning how to prepare meat.)  The hardest part was the initial washing of the bird: the uncooked, whole chicken felt like a newborn baby, that flaccidity with bones inside.  I’m no longer uncomfortable with eating meat, however, as long as it’s raised humanely and sustainably.  Michael Pollan talks about a contract between animals and their keepers, and how factory farms violate that sacred pact, so as long as I know exactly where it comes from (in this case, from a farm five miles down the road), I feel better about it.  As weird as it was to handle that chicken, I think that visceral connection to my food is better than buying some anonymous, plastic-wrapped chicken breast at the store.  This is not to say we don’t buy the stuff at the store, but we’re trying to move away from that.  Baby steps!

 

Another thing I don’t like about buying grocery store chicken is that I feel bad knowing I’m only eating parts of a once living creature.   I have many meals’ worth of leftover chicken, so I will use some tonight in my enchiladas and freeze the rest.  I will also make a nourishing bone broth later today with the bones, connective tissues, and other inedible pieces that I can store for later use.

 

I ended up making spaghetti last night, so tonight I will make the enchiladas — chicken for Husband, bean and potato (leftover from Sunday night’s dinner) for the rest of us, with cheese optional.  I also made a pot of pinto beans (for the enchiladas and for lunches this week) seasoned with cumin, salt, and pepper, some chocolate chip cookies, and a batch of sandwich bread.  This might not sound like a big deal, but finding the time in between dealing with children is a bit of a challenge. 

 

Oh, and did I mention that I haven’t yet started buying food for the Thanksgiving dinner I’m hosting?

White Chili on Just Another Manic Monday

So much didn’t get done today (what’s new around here?), but at least dinner turned out well.  Even if I didn’t have time to make the cornbread.  Which I somehow haven’t had time to do for about a week now.  But enough about my busy life…here’s how I pulled off dinner:

 

Having never made a White Chili, I found one at All Recipes that seemed like the one I’ve had before.  I halved the recipe, substituted dried beans, and only used one small chicken breast.  Then I proceeded like this:

 

1) Sauteed the diced onion, garlic, green chiles, and seasonings (which, by the way, I added way more of — maybe double the amount) until tender, then added the chicken breast (which I cubed), plus some salt and pepper, and cooked until no longer pink. 

 

2) Next, I added a whole box of chicken stock, brought it to a boil, then added the beans.  Normally I cook beans by themselves before adding anything else to them, but I just threw them in and let the whole thing cook for almost three hours, when the beans were tender enough to eat.  I finished it off by pureeing some of it in the pot with my stick blender (to add some creaminess), and that was it!  We didn’t even add the cheese, and it was flavorful and hardy. 

 

Just some notes for my vegan friends:

 

- This chili would have been JUST AS GOOD without the chicken, since I used so little chicken you could barely detect it anyway.

 

- Cheese is totally unnecessary — there’s enough “creaminess” from the beans.

 

Next time, I’ll probably completely omit the chicken (better for the budget!) and add more green chiles.  I tried to gussy it up with some colorful radishes and a bay leaf for the picture, but the combination of my dying camera and lack of photography skills still makes it look pretty bland:

 

 

The lighting is my fault, but the fuzziness isn’t.  I should have a new camera by the end of the month, though.