I'm on the best kickball team EVER"What's the difference between a chicken and a naturopath?"
"One 'bocks' the other 'quacks'"
(Now, we all know that's not true. What is true, though, is that for the first year of me showing an interest in natural medicine, my mom made wings with her arms and quacked at me every time the subject came up.)
Chicken is one of the easiest, most affordable meats to find free ranging and organic. As long as you're not requiring boneless skinless breasts ($6.99/lb), these meats come cheap and easy. A whole organic bird--whether intact or in parts--runs between $1.69-$2.99/lb. Bone in, skin-on legs and thighs run about the same. Now that is some affordable protein.
I get tired of eating hunks of meat all the time. This is when it's chicken to the rescue. Boiled in some salty water, chicken parts become moist meaty bits ready to be disguised 1000 ways.
My favorite way of the day?
Quiona Pasta with Chicken and Fresh Arugula Pasta
It's really so much easier than all the steps below make it seem.
Especially so if you're in the habit, as I am, of cooking up
chicken in batches for easy access all week long.
Poached Chicken (kinda)
Desired amount of chicken pieces and parts
I'll poach between 1.5-2lbs at a time, and use it a gazillion ways.
Breasts can go in bone-in, or can be peeled off the bone,
then bones and breasts can be added separately
Salted water
Put chicken pieces in a saucepan, and cover with water. My kitchen resources have been severely limited as of late, so I have been poaching whole birds (as broken pieces and parts) in frying pans. It's a little bit pathetic, but it gets the job done. I usually can't add enough water to cover the meat, but I do the best I can and flip the pieces as I go. Crank up the heat. Let it rip. Allow the water to boil rapidly and your chicken will transform from pinky sticky to white (or dark) and tender. The pieces are ready when the bones slip right out. Depending on time and how I'm feeling, I'll remove the meat, then return broken bones, skin (organic meat=no hormones or pesticides in the fat; eat it up!) and joint tissue to the pan to simmer. This water, poured into jars and stuck in the fridge, makes a tasty broth for breakfast egg-drop soup, or for steaming veggies, cooking grains...
Fresh Arugula Pesto
bunch of arugula, washed and torn
pine nuts (about 1/3 cup?), toasted until their warm smell permeates the kitchen
the deli near my work makes this pesto with hazlenuts,
which is delicious. Walnuts could work too. I had pine nuts
in the freezer, so I went wtih it.
2-5 cloves of garlic
olive oil
salt
pepper
lemon juice (optional)
Toss 1/3 of the arugula into the bowl of your food processor. I work in batches, so that the final product has a chunkier, more interesting consistency than uniform paste. Add as much garlic as your heart desires. Drizzle in a bit--one or two teaspoons--of olive oil. Pulse away. Add most of the nuts and another third of the arugula. Add more olive oil if the mixture seems dry; I prefer a less oily pesto and might use a tablespoon of oil for the whole production. Salt, pepper, pulse, pulse, pulse. I taste here, and add more salt or pepper, garlic, lemon juice...whatever it screams like it needs. If I'd had romano (sheep's milk) cheese in the house, I'd have added 1/2-3/4 of a cup of that, now. Pulse again, perhaps, then add the last of the arugula and nuts and blend to desired consistency. Store in a glass jar in the fridge.
Quinoa Pasta
this stuff is tasty. Prepare according to the directions on the box.
Put it all together
This is where my little secret comes in: chop up your chicken well. Chop it up into teeny tiny bits, running the knife one way and then the other, until the meat is more like chicken rice than anything else. These chickeny bits can be thrown into virtually anything--soups, salads, stews, scrambles, dips, pasta--without adding more than a protein boost.
Blend chicken with pesto, and pesto with pasta. Finally, a "pasta" dish that doesn't leave me feeling overstuffed and bloated.
It's really so much easier than all the steps below make it seem.
Especially so if you're in the habit, as I am, of cooking up
chicken in batches for easy access all week long.
Poached Chicken (kinda)
Desired amount of chicken pieces and parts
I'll poach between 1.5-2lbs at a time, and use it a gazillion ways.
Breasts can go in bone-in, or can be peeled off the bone,
then bones and breasts can be added separately
Salted water
Put chicken pieces in a saucepan, and cover with water. My kitchen resources have been severely limited as of late, so I have been poaching whole birds (as broken pieces and parts) in frying pans. It's a little bit pathetic, but it gets the job done. I usually can't add enough water to cover the meat, but I do the best I can and flip the pieces as I go. Crank up the heat. Let it rip. Allow the water to boil rapidly and your chicken will transform from pinky sticky to white (or dark) and tender. The pieces are ready when the bones slip right out. Depending on time and how I'm feeling, I'll remove the meat, then return broken bones, skin (organic meat=no hormones or pesticides in the fat; eat it up!) and joint tissue to the pan to simmer. This water, poured into jars and stuck in the fridge, makes a tasty broth for breakfast egg-drop soup, or for steaming veggies, cooking grains...
Fresh Arugula Pesto
bunch of arugula, washed and torn
pine nuts (about 1/3 cup?), toasted until their warm smell permeates the kitchen
the deli near my work makes this pesto with hazlenuts,
which is delicious. Walnuts could work too. I had pine nuts
in the freezer, so I went wtih it.
2-5 cloves of garlic
olive oil
salt
pepper
lemon juice (optional)
Toss 1/3 of the arugula into the bowl of your food processor. I work in batches, so that the final product has a chunkier, more interesting consistency than uniform paste. Add as much garlic as your heart desires. Drizzle in a bit--one or two teaspoons--of olive oil. Pulse away. Add most of the nuts and another third of the arugula. Add more olive oil if the mixture seems dry; I prefer a less oily pesto and might use a tablespoon of oil for the whole production. Salt, pepper, pulse, pulse, pulse. I taste here, and add more salt or pepper, garlic, lemon juice...whatever it screams like it needs. If I'd had romano (sheep's milk) cheese in the house, I'd have added 1/2-3/4 of a cup of that, now. Pulse again, perhaps, then add the last of the arugula and nuts and blend to desired consistency. Store in a glass jar in the fridge.
Quinoa Pasta
this stuff is tasty. Prepare according to the directions on the box.
Put it all together
This is where my little secret comes in: chop up your chicken well. Chop it up into teeny tiny bits, running the knife one way and then the other, until the meat is more like chicken rice than anything else. These chickeny bits can be thrown into virtually anything--soups, salads, stews, scrambles, dips, pasta--without adding more than a protein boost.
Blend chicken with pesto, and pesto with pasta. Finally, a "pasta" dish that doesn't leave me feeling overstuffed and bloated.
(Some of my mentors warn against eating chicken. They cite that fowl contains high amounts of adrenal hormones from the stressful lives the fowl lead. They will concede that free range chicken is better, but have gone so far as to say that we--women especially--should avoid the birds all together. I haven't researched these doctors' claims. When I eat conventional chicken, my pulse races. I don't seem to have this problem with free range/organic chicks. I figure, if I'm off of wheat, dairy, sugar and soy... my body can probably handle the bird.)
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