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Turkey Chili

turkey chili

As I mentioned earlier, we chose to have our turkey this Thanksgiving in the form of turkey chili. We thought it would be a low-key way of incorporating the traditional bird into the meal, plus we are just big fans of chili. I’m happy to say that it worked out really well – delicious and virtually no stress in working with ground turkey, compared to a whole bird.

I actually made this with beef a while back, and I remember us liking it that way, too. So, if turkey isn’t your style, beef works well.

For a long time, now, I’ve been searching for a simple and tasty chili recipe, and I’m thrilled to have developed one that works well for our tastes. This isn’t a blow-your-head-off spicy chili, though you could probably add enough heat with chiles to make that happen if you’d like. It’s not a super thick chili (which has its appeal), and it’s not an overly soupy chili (a style of chili I find utterly unappealing) – for me, it’s just right.

My boyfriend loves it, and has been singing its praises on a daily basis since Thursday. I expect this will make its way into the monthly rotation, especially now that it’s getting cooler (though today it was 70 degrees in NYC!). I could also see doubling this recipe and freezing a bunch of it for quick meals after a long day.

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The Best Chicken Salad

chicken salad on csa lettuce

Earlier this spring, I rediscovered chicken salad; I’m not actually sure why I had forgotten about it.  I used to love chicken salad sandwiches I’d eat from the deli while at grad school (the bread was always a little stale), but I wonder now what exactly was in those sandwiches…

I’ve made this particular chicken salad a half dozen times since May already.  It is just so good.  The list of ingredients isn’t extensive, which is probably why it works so well for my taste.  I’ve made a few adjustments, including making the mayonnaise from scratch.

mayo

I used the mayonnaise recipe from Nourishing Traditions and I love it!  I didn’t have any whey handy, so this mayo will only last a couple of weeks; I have plans to make lacto-fermented mayo soon.  I used a combination of extra virgin olive oil and expeller pressed organic sunflower oil, which are much better fats than the canola and soybean oil you’ll often find in commercial mayo.  I once made mayonnaise with all olive oil and didn’t really like it – it was too intense for me and didn’t taste much like mayo.

The mayo is also a wonderful yellow color, thanks to the excellent pastured eggs I have access to.

One of the predominate flavors in this chicken salad is tarragon, an herb I never paid much attention to.  I was never a real fan of it, but since I’ve been making this salad, I’ve become its champion.  I got a beautiful bunch of it in the first week’s CSA share, and was happy to use it in the chicken salad.  In fact, I pumped up the amount of tarragon, I love it so much.

I also switched out the original cranberries for apples.  I think the apples are so perfect in this salad, giving a level of sweetness that I think is absolutely delicious.  Apples and walnuts are a classic pairing, too.

topped with mayo

Chicken breasts work well in this salad (I poach them) but really any leftover chicken will do, be it roasted, grilled, or whatever.

chicken salad

Apple-Walnut Chicken Salad
Adapted from smitten kitchen, who adapted it quite loosely from Gourmet

4 cups cubed (1/2 inch) cooked chicken (about 1 3/4 lb), pastured if possible
1 cup walnuts, toasted and chopped
1 celery rib, diced into small bits (1 cup)
2 or more tablespoons finely chopped shallot
1 apple, cored and cubed (no need to peel it)
2/3 to 3/4 cup mayonnaise (homemade is best)
3 tablespoons white wine vinegar
4 tablespoons finely chopped fresh tarragon
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper

Toss together all ingredients in a large bowl until combined well.

Makes 4 to 6 servings.

This post is participating in Fight Back Friday hosted by Food Renegade.

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Omelet – a Quick and Delicious Dinner

omelette

I don’t remember how I came up with this dish, but it was probably inspired by having a bunch of leftovers combined with my love of eggs. Basically, “omelet”, as I call it, is vegetables and meat sauteed in a pan, topped with uncooked scrambled eggs and cheese, and steamed until the eggs are cooked through. It doesn’t sound exotic or fancy, and isn’t the prettiest thing around, but it is tasty, nourishing, and easy to prepare. It’s an excellent dish to cook when you have little time or are just plain tired and want something to eat fairly fast. It’s also a great canvas for improvisation.

I mentioned leftovers above – it’s a great dish for leftovers – greens work especially well, as do onions, potatoes, carrots, summer squash, and tomatoes. You can mix in some pesto with the eggs, add diced or ground meat, sausage, or cured meats. You can also make it very simple with just onions, potato, egg, and cheese. You can even add a sauce you like at the end. This dish is incredibly flexible, which is one of the things I like about it.

Last night, I used half a white onion, leftover garlic lemon greens, chopped cooked chicken, pesto ricotta, eggs, and grated Locatelli (a salty hard cheese). In this case, everything but the eggs and cheese were leftovers from last week. It was a very tasty combination.

So, what I did was:

  • Diced up the onions and sautéed them in olive oil (about 1 T) until they became translucent.
  • Added the chicken and cooked that a little bit.
  • Then came the greens, and I cooked everything together until it was heated through.
  • I also made sure that the pan was completely covered with this mixture, so that eggs would not leak through to the pan surface; it’s best if they sit atop the vegetables.
  • Scrambled the eggs and poured them on top (I used 5 eggs this time, which was perfect)
  • I then put small dollops of pesto ricotta across the top of the mixture, and sprinkled on the grated cheese.
  • I put a lid on it, turned the heat down to low and let it steam. I’d check on it from time to time to make sure the eggs were cooked through. It took about 10-15 minutes for the eggs to cook and the dish to come together.
  • I only salted the onions a little bit, as the leftovers had all be seasoned when I cooked them originally, so extra salt was not needed.

If I were skipping the pesto ricotta, I’d probably use a sharp cheddar in place of the Locatelli and eat it with hot sauce!

So, in general, the order of ingredients would go as follows:

  • aromatics (e.g. onion, garlic, bacon)
  • ground/chopped meat (if using)
  • hard veggies (e.g. carrots, potatoes)
  • soft veggies (e.g. greens, summer squash, tomatoes, sauce)
  • herbs
  • eggs (solo, or combined with sauce like pesto, tomato, or salsa)
  • cheese
  • The order of things can even be re-arranged if it works better for you.

Like I said, there is room for improvisation and the dish is extremely customizable.

It’s been a quick and delicious dinner staple in my household and has provided us with delicious and nutritious meals numerous times. I hope you find it a useful and enjoyable dish as well.

This post is participating in Real Food Wednesday, hosted by Kelly the Kitchen Kop.

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Stewing Hen Goodness

On Sunday, I took the stewing hen I bought earlier this month through my buying club, and boiled it up, resulting in both meat and a luscious broth.  The meat really is tough – the stewing hen is a chicken past her egg-laying prime; no spring chicken, ha ha!  This is a true free-range bird, so it’s understandable about the meat’s texture.  However, it yielded probably the most delicious chicken broth I’ve ever tasted.

broth

I could have just stuck the whole bird in the pot with its integrity intact, but I chose to butcher it a bit.  I cut off the wings and legs, and left the rest alone – I further exposed the bone because I wanted to make sure that I’d have a good chance for the broth to be gelatin-rich.  Then I added half a chopped yellow onion, three large garlic cloves and a tablespoon or two of Mexican oregano.   Finally, I added a teaspoon of fine sea salt.

I boiled the hen for a couple of hours, then set the pieces out to cool down enough for me to handle then.  I shred the meat and will have it available this week for tacos, sandwiches, or chicken salad.  Since the meat is tough, I’ll store it immersed in the broth, which I hope will tenderize it.  I added an additional teaspoon of sea salt to the broth, and that was the perfect amount of seasoning.  Since I’ve cut back on sugar, my sensitivity to both sweet and salty has heightened, and I now find overly salty things to be much more intense than they used to be.

stewing hen collage

I strained out the veggies and herbs from the broth, and set the pot in the fridge to cool down overnight.  By tonight I’ll have a better idea of its gelatinous quality and the amount of fat in it (I’ll scrape that off it there’s enough, and use it for other things).  I’m going to freeze a bunch of the broth, but also leave some in the fridge for when I cook quinoa and millet this week.  Cooking the grains in this broth will make them even more nourishing and healthful.  Not to mention delicious!

Usually when I make stock, I use the carcas of a roasted chicken.  This is the first time I’d actually bought a chicken for the express purpose of stewing it and collecting the meat after the fact.  I’m looking forward to seeing how it works out this week.

final result

This was the first week in I don’t know how long, that I planned out my meals for the week.   I’m happy about this, and I have a lot of great meals in store.  Plotting out the week I expect will make lunches easier to handle, too.  Too often I just eat out, and I’d like to not do that so much (once a week, tops).  Bad for the pocketbook and the waistline, since it’s challenging to find truly nourishing food near my office.

I’m also starting a running training schedule this week, with my goal of running a 4 mile race in mid-Jully.  I miss racing and running, and really want to start up again; I’m really excited to “get back on the horse”, as they say.  I sustained a bad ankle injury a bit over a year ago, and have found it difficult to get back into running.  Having a schedule should make it easier to keep at it.

Here’s to an active, interesting, and delicious week!

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Salsa Verde Chicken

salsa verde chicken bowl

I’ve eaten many, many chicken breasts (boneless/skinless) in my days. Unfortunately, many of them have been tasteless, with texture like sawdust. There’s a salad place near my office that serves chicken breasts just like that. When I first tasted them, I couldn’t believe how bad they were, or that any place would be ok with selling something of that questionable quality. Needless to say, I don’t eat them there anymore.

(We ate them weekly when I was a kid, and I don’t remember them being so devoid of flavor then.)

Fortunately, I have discovered wonderful chicken breasts that actually taste like chicken! I get them through my CSA and they are delicious. These are chickens that run around on pasture, eat bugs, and lead a generally good life.  This kind of chicken is always going to produce tastier meat.

March 20102

Usually I grill chicken breasts, but I’ve gotten tired of cooking them that way, and have wanted to find other ways to prepare them. I’ve tried poaching them in spiced/herbed water, but they end up being devoid of fat. Baking them is dissatisfying. What to do?

My current favorite way of cooking them is pan-frying them in coconut oil, which is an excellent fat that lends rich flavor and adds extra nutrition.  Then I chop them up and simmer them in salsa verde – one of my favorite sauces. I like eating them with a little cheese on gorditas, or even by themselves.

I was fortunate enough to find in my freezer a bag of salsa verde I’d made last summer from tomatillos I grew in my community garden.  I find homemade salsa verde to be far superior to anything in a jar, but if you’re stretched for time, using salsa from a jar works just fine.

salsa verde chix

Salsa Verde Chicken

1 full chicken breast
2 tablespoons coconut oil
sea salt and pepper

3 cups salsa verde, either homemade or jarred

Rinse and fully dry the chicken breasts.  Cut them into strips, then into smaller chunks.  Season them with salt and pepper.

Fry in the coconut oil until just cooked through.  Set aside.

Put the salsa verde in a saucepan and heat to a simmer.

When the chicken has cooled a bit, chop the chicken up into smaller pieces, as small as you like. Mine tended to be in general about 1/2 inch in size.

Put the chicken in the sauce and simmer for another 15-20 minutes.

Serve topped with grated cheese and/or sour cream, served over gorditas, tortillas, or the whole grain of your choice.

This dish is even better the day after!

Serves 4.