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Archive for the ‘Easy’ Category
Okay, so I decided to not write about vegetable oil or raw milk. I’m going to pick on canned chicken broth instead.
I was big on canned chicken broths for years, until I realized that MSG gives me headaches and makes my ears ring. So, I started looking for canned/boxed broths that have no MSG – and that’s damn hard to find, because even if a label claims it is MSG free (Swanson’s, for example), it still has MSG in it. If a list of ingredients says “autolyzed yeast extract” or “yeast extract” or “natural flavors” it contains MSG, and the USDA labeling standards allows the manufacturer to claim their product is “MSG free.”
Don’t you love it.
In fact, pick up a can of chicken broth and read the label – you’ll very likely see an ingredient list that looks like this:
Chicken broth, salt, monosodium glutamate, dextrose, flavoring, hydrolyzed soy protein, carrots, hydrolyzed corn protein, celery, onion, chicken fat, sugar, disodium guanylate, autolyzed yeast extract.
Mmm, mmm – what a tasty way to get your daily allowance of chemicals and genetically modified food organisms.
Making your own chicken broth is not hard at all, although it is a tad time-consuming. But what you’ll have when you’re done is a pot of wonderful, healthy chicken stock that is so tasty you’ll wonder why you ever bought the stuff in a can or box (I know I do). It is every bit as convenient, too. because you can freeze it in different amounts so you’ll have exactly as much as you need. Just need a little? Freeze some in ice cube trays and bag the cubes – the average ice cube is about 2 tablespoons, so two chicken stock cubes would be fine for a recipe calling for 1/4 cup of chicken broth.
Along with a good-sized stock pot you’ll need cheesecloth, but that’s inexpensive easy to find – it’s one of the few things I still buy at the grocery store.
Note: You can use the carcass of a chicken you’ve roasted or use a whole chicken, which is what this recipe calls for. Reserve the meat for recipes that call for cooked chicken.
Chicken Stock
Chicken Stock
1 two to three pound chicken, or bone-in chicken parts with skin
3 carrots
3 stalks celery
2 onions
2 tablespoons peppercorns, cracked
4 bay leaves
2 teaspoons sea salt
Water to cover
Thoroughly wash carrots, celery and onions – you don’t need to peel them, but you may want to trim the ends. Cut them in half (quarter the onions); they’ll be easier fit into the stock pot.
Rinse the chicken well with cold water and remove any giblets, if necessary.
Combine chicken, carrots, celery, onions, peppercorns, bay leaves and salt in a large, heavy-bottomed stock pot. Add enough water to cover; bring the mixture to a boil over medium-high heat.
Reduce the heat to low, and simmer for two hours.
Remove the chicken from the pot; carefully pull the meat off of the bones and return the carcass and skin to the stock. Continue simmering for another hour; taste. If the stock is not rich enough, continue to simmer, tasting every 15 minutes.
When stock has reached desired richness and flavor, turn off the heat and allow to cool for one hour. Strain the stock through the cheesecloth into storage containers, label with the date and freeze.
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Posted in participation of Food Renegade’s Fight Back Friday
It took me awhile to recover from so many days off, but I have recipes again! LOL
Actually, I was quite busy this weekend – on top of grilling some filets from Chuck and smoking a free-range chicken we picked up at the farmer’s market, we pitted and froze five pounds of sweet cherries I found on sale for $.199/lb, made homemade chicken stock from a “soup chicken”- an old laying hen past her prime – and (believe it or not) made dog food for Scooter, using the meat from the old hen and a kidney from Chuck.
Yes, I guess we’ve gone off the deep end. I should have never read the ingredients on the bag of kibble we’ve been feeding him; it was simply appalling. I wouldn’t eat that stuff; why feed it to my furry, four-legged child?
At any rate, since we’ve got the grill/smoker cranked up full throttle for the summer, salads are still the order of the day. We’d picked up some lovely tomatoes and cucumbers at the farmer’s market this last weekend and have been trying to consume a seedless watermelon for several days (there’s only so much watermelon you can eat at any given meal, and I’ve been resisting the urge to pull the ice cream maker out and make a sorbet with it), so voilá! A Tomato, Watermelon and Cucumber salad.
Quick, easy, tasty, refreshing and oh-so-good for you, too. What more could you ask for?
Note: A mandolin will make quick work of the cucumber and onion.
Tomato, Watermelon and Cucumber Salad
Tomato, Watermelon and Cucumber Salad
4 to 6 servings
4 cups cubed watermelon
1 large, ripe tomato, chopped
1 large cucumber, sliced very thinly
1/2 large, sweet onion, sliced very thinly
1 teaspoon fresh thyme, minced
3 teaspoons sugar or Splenda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup red wine vinegar
2 to 3 tablespoons olive oil
freshly ground black pepper to taste
Combine the watermelon, tomato and cucumber in a large bowl; toss with the sugar or Splenda and salt. Let it stand for 15 minutes.
Stir in the onion, thyme, vinegar and olive oil. Cover and chill for 2 hours. Taste; season with pepper. Serve on lettuce leaves, if desired.
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Beloved and I are leaving at noon today, heading to Wisconsin for his family reunion. We’re looking forward to it, especially the drive, since we love to road trip and the weather is knock-your-eyes out gorgeous today. However, I can’t be sure if I’ll have time or internet access while we’re gone, so I may not post again or get around to reading blogs until our return Sunday night. Also, today is the last day of the month; my NaBloPoMo obligation is over and the thought of a break is rather welcome.
But we’ll see.
We’ll be stopping in Chicago overnight, and I made reservations at Roy Yamaguchi’s restaurant for dinner. Why Roy’s? Well, we love the place, for one. For another, it won’t require us to A) dress as if we’re attending Princess Diana’s wedding and 2) take a second mortgage out on the house. Seriously – Google “fine dining in Chicago”; the prices you’ll see will make your eyes hemorrhage. You know me – I love good food and am willing to pay for it, but $200? Per person? At those kinds of prices, I’ll worship it from afar, thank you very much.
Anyhoo. Another easy recipe today, especially if you like to grill/smoke/barbecue (or, in Beloved’s case, all three). The instructions for this require simple, indirect heat on your grill, but we put them in the smoker with the brisket this weekend and they were just fine. In fact, we’ve had to restrain ourselves from eating them all so we’d have some road trip snack food for today (Chicago is a six hour drive from our house).
Have a lovely day, y’all.
Smoked Almonds
Smoked Almonds
makes..a lot
1 pound natural (raw) almonds
1 1/2 tablespoons of your favorite hot sauce
2 teaspoons of your favorite barbecue rub
Set up the grill for indirect grilling.
Toss together all the ingredients until the nuts are well coated with the hot sauce and rub, then pour into a disposable aluminum pan (at least 9″ square) in an even layer. Cover and smoke until the nuts are crisp, about 3 hours.
Cool completely. Store in an airtight container if you have any leftover to store.
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Well, here it is, Monday again.
Oh, and I’ve lost 11.5 pounds in a little over a month. Just by changing the diet (I have yet to go down to the basement and confront the treadmill and Bowflex…don’t push me, it’s coming). Yay, me.
(Beloved has lost 12 pounds in like 3 weeks, but we won’t go there right now.)
Anyhoo. Monday. Boooooooooo. Well, that’s all right – we’re going to take a mini-vacation and leave town Wednesday afternoon to go to Wisconsin for Beloved’s family reunion, returning Sunday. We’ll be stopping overnight in Chicago on our way there – anyone know of any good restaurants in the downtown area?
Today’s recipe is easy and delicious – Pan Roasted Asparagus. We love asparagus and you can still find it relatively cheaply at the store and farmer’s markets. It is particularly good pan roasted in a hot, cast iron skillet, drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with freshly ground black pepper, fleur de sel or kosher salt and a little freshly grated Parmesan cheese.
Nomilicious stuff.
Pan Roasted Asparagus
Pan Roasted Asparagus
serves 3 to 4
1 pound of fresh asparagus, trimmed, washed and well-dried
2 tablespoons olive oil
salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
2 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan cheese, optional
Heat a small, cast iron skillet over high heat until it is almost smoking. Add the asparagus to the dry skillet, stirring it occasionally, until it begins to brown but is still crisp. Remove the skillet from the heat, drizzle the olive oil over the asparagus, season with salt and pepper and sprinkle it with the cheese if desired. Serve immediately.
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Here in the States, cherries are in season. They aren’t something I cook with very often, and when I made this dish Friday night, I wondered why – it was really simple and absolutely delicious.
We had scored some really nice, bone-in pork chops at the little retail store of the people who butchered our half a cow (more about the marvelous Perkins family of White Feather Meats in a later post) and I was rather at a loss with what to do with them. Then I spotted the inexpensive cherries I’d picked up earlier in the week and wondered if they could be used to sauce the chops. The answer was a very happy “Yes!”
After an extensive search of my cookbooks and the internet, I found this recipe on the Serious Eats website and immediately thought, “This is it!” Unlike most cherry sauces, this was low in sugar and didn’t use cornstarch to thicken it (a lot of the recipes I found online used canned cherry pie filling, which I have never liked). The original recipe did call for a pinch of sugar on the pork chops themselves, as well as pan-frying in canola oil – both of which have been banned from my kitchen. I simply seasoned the chops with a little salt and pepper and cooked them in a little beef tallow I’d rendered myself a few days earlier, and they came out just fine. The recipe also called for placing the pork chops on a cold skillet and turning the heat on underneath – a sure-fire way to get them to stick. Heat the skillet first, then add your fat and the meat, and you will greatly reduce any problems with it sticking to the pan.
And if you don’t eat pork, this would be just lovely on roasted or grilled chicken.
Pork Chops with Cherry Sauce
Pork Chops with Cherry Sauce
serves 4
1 cup cherries, pitted
3 tablespoons water
1/4 cup dry red wine
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
3 tablespoons honey
1 teaspoon thyme leaves, chopped
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
Pinch of salt
4 thick, bone-in loin pork chops
Salt and pepper to taste
1 tablespoon of fat – oil, clarified butter, lard, etc.
Place the cherries into a small pot and pour in the water, red wine, red wine vinegar, honey, thyme, mustard, and a pinch of salt. Bring to simmer and cook for about 10-15 minutes, smashing the cherries with a wooden spoon about half way through, or until the sauce becomes slightly syrupy.
In the meantime, heat a large, heavy skillet over medium high heat until quite hot. Place your fat of choice in the pan, making sure to coat the bottom. Season the pork chops lightly with salt and pepper, reduce the temperature slightly and pan fry them until they reach an internal temperature of 140º F, or are no longer pink in the center or close to the bone, 4 to 5 minutes on each side.
Serve immediately with the cherry sauce.
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