How-To: Chicken Broth

ChickenBroth

(this is the basic chicken broth recipe)

Ingredients:

• Whole chicken
• Onion, cut in half
• 2-3 stalks of celery, cut in about 4 inch pieces
• 2-3 carrots, washed, not peeled, cut in about 4 inch pieces
• 2-4 cloves of garlic, peeled
• 1-2 tablespoons white vinegar or lemon juice
• 8 cups water 
• salt and pepper, to taste 
• 1 small bunch parsley

Place chicken in large pot, add vegetables and water and vinegar or lemon juice. Bring to a boil and turn down burner. Maintain at simmer for at least 2 hours, but up to 24.
Remove pot from heat and add 1-2 tablespoons salt (or to taste) and 1 small bunch parsley. Stir. Wait about 1 hour and using spoon or tongs, remove pieces of chicken from pot onto platter or other dish. Set aside to cool more.
Using a mesh strainer, strain broth into large heat proof container. Allow broth to cool to room temperature and place in fridge overnight.
When meat and bones are cool enough to handle, pick out the meat and save for another meal.

Alternate suggestions:

1. If you are on a tight budget as most of us are right now, use the bones again but add more vegetables. The broth will be thinner the second (or third) time, but still very nutritious.
2. Make it in a crock-pot. I don't care for this method as well, but it does work!
3. Add other spices to your taste. I've added thyme, oregano, bay leaf, all with great results.
4. Use the carcass and bones from a roasted chicken. Obviously, if you already ate the meat, there won't be much to pick, but you will still have a great broth.

Lessons I've learned:

1. Better ingredients make better broth. Use the best quality ingredients you can afford. This means pastured chicken that wasn't given GMO grains; clean water (not plain tap water); and organic vegetables.
2. If making it in the crock-pot, don't do it overnight. About 2-3 a.m. I wake up and smell it and think I forgot something.
3. Sometimes the broth will gel, sometimes not. Don't worry about it. Also, when it cools, there should be a layer of fat on the top. Scrape it off. I don't use it, but some cooks do.

Stir Fry with Orange Sauce

A quick lunch or dinner recipe. To make this one come together even faster, chop veggies ahead of time and store in fridge.
Boneless chicken, cut into bite size pieces.
Vegetables, cut into bite size pieces (today I used broccoli, onions, carrots)
Dark sesame oil
1 orange, juiced, to which I add soy sauce (about 1/4 cup), minced garlic, a dollop of honey, and red pepper flakes
Preheat the skillet over medium high heat. Add sesame oil and allow to heat for only about a minute. Add onions and carrots and cook until onions are limp (makes them sweeter for the children!) and carrots are tender crisp. Remove from pan and set aside.
Add more oil if needed and stir fry the chicken. When chicken is nearly done, add back the set-aside vegetables and the broccoli. Stir fry until broccoli is nearly done. Pour sauce over top and mix well.
Serve.

Stir Fry Italian Tonight

Stir Fry always conjures images of Asian cuisine, with soy sauce and other "Asian" flavors. But sometimes I really want Italian. Pasta with pesto and shrimp or chicken and a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese.
Right now, we are eating a modified SCD (Specific Carbohydrate Diet). That means no grains of any kind (or foods that are served like grains) and no sugars (except small amounts of honey).
But I still want Italian tonight. So I will prepare it, stir fry style.

Ingredients:
Boneless chicken, cut into bite size pieces
Garlic, minced fine
Vegetables, cut into bite size pieces (onion, zucchini, red pepper, broccoli, mushrooms, tomatoes)
Herbs: basil, oregano, thyme, red pepper flakes
Olive oil
Parmesan cheese
Heat olive oil in large skillet over medium heat. Add garlic and saute until golden. Add chicken and stir until chicken doesn't show pink on outside. Add vegetables and continue to stir, until vegetables are tender but still crisp and chicken is cooked through. Add herbs and completely mix in. Top with Parmesan cheese and serve.
But where's the pasta or the rice? I leave it off. We aren't eating that right now, and frankly, I don't miss it.
But how much of these ingredients? Depends how many you are feeding. I'm feeding a family of 5 (including 3 boys with hearty appetites). I use 1 large onion, 1-2 zucchini, 1 red pepper, a head of broccoli, etc. The herbs--depends on my mood, but I figure more is better, so I'm guessing about a teaspoon of each, except the red pepper flakes, and that is just a dash.

Where have we come from?

Eating healthy. It means different things to different people.

Years ago (I've lost count now), we thought we were eating healthy. For breakfast, we'd have cereal or a frozen waffle. Lunch would be a sandwich, chips and some fruit. Supper would be pasta or a casserole, or breaded (frozen) meat. I'm not even going to talk about the junk food. We ate out frequently--at fast food restaurants that served burgers and fries. Our oldest son wouldn't eat any vegetable. We made some gradual changes--to whole grain cereals, breads and pastas, and fresh meats. We ate out less often. Then I got sick...and started researching why. The more I read and studied, the more I was appalled with what we were putting into our bodies. Most of it wasn't even real food! It was chemical imitations, preserved to last years and just plain weird.

Today, we enjoy lots of fresh fruits and vegetables that are in season. We eat grass fed beef and pastured poultry and eggs. I bake most of our breads from fresh ground grains. Our limited dairy is raw milk, grass fed dairy cheese and butter, and homemade kefir. My mindset is if my great-grandmother could have made it and would recognize it as food, then so will we. If the ingredients have unpronounceable words or require a chemistry degree for comprehension, then it probably isn't really food--and we shouldn't eat it.

Do we do this perfectly? I wish. But we do live in a society of convenience. Sometimes, the old habits are hard to break. It takes baby steps.