Tag: food

One chicken, four meals.

August 25, 2015

When we were both working, most Friday night dinners were completely predictable:  rotisserie chicken.  According to a recent article in the Toronto Star, “rotisserie chickens are as ubiquitous as burgers or tacos without falling victim to being dubbed trendy” – at least here in the “Greater Toronto Area”. (As an aside, I can’t help but laugh about that sobriquet – technically my tiny crossroads hamlet is part of the GTA, but what we have in common with the ‘mega-city’ to the east of us continues to elude me.)

Unless it’s a love of food.  Because I’m not talking about the rotisserie chickens drying out under lights at the back of the grocery store.  For $12, I would buy a free-run, clean-fed chicken, rubbed with herbs and olive oil, moist and tender.  They were simply better than any roast chicken I’ve ever made, and at the end of a long week they were satisfying and fast.

One chicken, a bit over a kg in weight (2.5 lb. more or less) gave us four meals.  The first dinner would be just roast chicken:  the leg and thigh for BD, who prefers dark meat; the breast for me. Served with cranberry chutney from Rose’s, a salad and oven fries (BD makes great oven fries, potato chunks tossed in olive oil, black pepper and rosemary, and roasted at 360 degrees for 45 – 50 minutes) that used, roughly, a bit less than half the chicken.

The equivalent pieces – the other leg and thigh, and the other breast, went into the freezer, to be gently reheated over a pan of water in a slow oven another time.  But at this point there was still a lot of meat on the carcass.  I’d chill it overnight, and then on Saturday strip the rest of the meat from the bones, chopping it into small pieces.

These smaller pieces of meat were destined for either ‘poulterer’s pie’: our version of shepherd’s pie created once BD couldn’t eat red meat, or chicken curry.  I’ve never actually written the recipe for poulterer’s pie down, but basically it’s a mix of chicken and vegetables, herbs and spices, in a thickened chicken broth, topped with a mash- I’ve used potatoes, sweet potatoes, a combination of the two, or a combination that includes parsnips; all work – and baked in the oven until bubbly.  It’s a great cold-weather meal.

Once I’d removed the meat from the bones, the carcass is destined to make chicken broth.  Roasting the bones in a slow oven for a while – 45 minutes or so – before making broth does give a richer flavour but it isn’t necessary if you’re using the carcass of a cooked chicken.  I put the bones, a chunk of chopped onion, and a bit of garlic in my slow cooker, fill it with water, and let it cook all day on low.

Once it’s cooked down to about half of the amount of water originally put in, I strain it and let it cool.  The bones are destined for the compost at this point (we have a municipal kitchen-waste composting pick-up here – the town takes it away once a week, composts it at the waste management site, and gives it away in the spring. When we did back-yard composting of kitchen waste, I stopped composting bones because there is a feed mill in the village…and feed mills attract rats…which like bones and meat scraps.  And I don’t like rats.)

I may do one of two or three things with the broth:  make soup immediately; freeze it in mason jars for later use, or, freeze it in ice-cube trays to give me chunks of broth to use when a recipe needs a small amount.  Mostly I make soup, which served with warm bread and pickles from Rose’s often make up Sunday suppers.  We’ve likely had pancakes and sausage for brunch, so a small evening meal is all we need.  And there is usually enough soup left over for at least one lunch.

So there it is:  one chicken, four meals. BD likes these chickens better than the one’s I’ve roasted (I’m not insulted, because I agree with him) so I think we’ll probably continue buying them, once the cool weather returns.  They fit our food ethics – they are locally raised, and I’m supporting a local small business by buying them, and I’m pretty happy with four meals for two from a twelve-dollar chicken.

The weather forecast calls for highs of 19 degrees C (66 F) later this week.  I think that’s cool enough for roast chicken, don’t you?

Garbage Loaf

August 14, 2015

A week or two ago we had friends over for dinner, a simple post-movie meal of cold chicken and salads, followed by local raspberries, fruit loaf and ice cream.  After everyone had finished, there were a few raspberries left.  “Eat them, BD,” one of our friends said, “otherwise, they’ll just go to waste.”

As I assured her they would most certainly not go to waste, but be eaten the next day, probably as part of my breakfast, I reflected on the amount of food that is thrown away.  According to The Guardian, thirty percent of all food produced in the world is wasted, and in western countries a large portion of that waste is in the home – food we buy, don’t eat, and throw out.

Why?  Well, a very small bit of spoiled food occurs – the tomato sauce that gets shoved to the back of the fridge and forgotten, and has grown a lovely blue mold when you do find it, the cracked egg in the dozen. But those are not that common in the western world of refrigeration and freezers.  I think food is thrown out because of a lack of planning; a lack of cooking skills in some cases, and because we don’t value food enough.  We want it to be cheap and easy.  We forget the purpose of food – to transform the light and warmth of the sun, the nutrients of the earth, the molecules of water – into nourishment for our bodies, through the labour of many hands.  When something is that fundamental, that miraculous – and can I say it, as a secular person? – that sacred – how dare we waste it?

We try to be mindful about food, and that means planning.  Once a week or so, we draw up a menu, and from that menu a shopping list.  And then we stick to it.  This takes time, every week, but it’s time well worth it, and not just because it will mean less money spent; it means BD and I talk about what we’re eating, what recipes to try, how long we’ll need to make supper, where to buy the produce. We are, as a result, perhaps more conscious – more mindful – of what food is in the house, and what it’s for.

I shop twice a week for grocery-store perishables like milk and yogurt, in part because our fridge just isn’t that big.  (Which in itself is a good thing, since it does mean that there is less chance that half-jar of tomato sauce will get shoved to the back and forgotten.)  I shop almost daily for fruit and vegetables during the summer, when the farm stands are open and the produce is freshly picked.  But for meats, I shop, roughly,  monthly, or perhaps every six weeks, buy in moderately large quantities, divide into portion sizes, and freeze.  All this significantly reduces the chances that food will be overlooked or wasted.

But don’t think I’m a paragon of planning.  I keep a freezer inventory, and I mean to cross off what is used, but it doesn’t always happen.  And so, yes, every so often I find some chicken in the freezer that’s looking a bit freezer-burned. Sometimes the only zucchini I can get at the farm stand is too big for just the meal I want it for.  Sometimes one of the apples has too many bruises, or BD forgets to eat his raw carrots and they go soft.  So what then? I can’t bring myself to throw out food unless it’s truly gone off.

Freezer-burned chicken, like the carcass when we have a roast chicken, is saved to make soup, a mainstay of colder-weather meals.  (I’ll wait until the colder weather arrives before writing more about that – I can’t get excited about soup recipes in the summer.)    Soft, over-ripe, or just plain excess fruits and vegetables that don’t freeze well, though, go into ‘garbage loaf’, basically an adaptation of a banana loaf recipe with the same amount of just about any vegetable substituted for the banana.  I even mix them – but be sensible about that:  tomato and zucchini work together, as do apples and carrots, but I wouldn’t do strawberries and tomato.  BD will eat almost any baking, but even he’d draw the line at the last one!

So here’s the recipe for ‘Garbage Loaf’ as I make it. (I probably should have called it Leftovers Loaf, but at least in our house, it’s too late now – Garbage Loaf it is.)

Wet ingredients:

1 cup just about any fruit or vegetable, diced, shredded, or cooked and mashed..  If using carrots or parsnips, grate and steam slightly first.

1/4 cup applesauce (to reduce the fat; if you don’t have it, or don’t want to use it, double the amount of oil.)

1/4 cup light oil – I use safflower, but sunflower, corn or soy works too.

2 eggs, beaten

1 tsp vanilla

4 Tbsp fruit juice (not tomato juice)

Dry Ingredients:

1/2 c brown sugar (this suits us; you may like it sweeter.  It also depends on whether or not you add chocolate chips or dried fruit.)

1 and 3/4 cups flour:  I use whole wheat.

1 tsp baking powder, rounded

1 tsp baking soda

Optional Ingredients 

1/2 cup of any of:

nuts

chocolate chips

raisins or other dried fruits

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.  If using a glass or metal loaf tin, grease it; a silicon one should not need it.

In a bowl, combine the fruit or vegetable mash, oil, eggs, sugar, vanilla and fruit juice.  Mix with a heavy fork or a hand mixer until well blended.

In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and baking soda, and any optional ingredients you are using.

Pour the liquid ingredients into the dry, and mix with a heavy fork or a hand mixer on low; do not over-mix.

Spoon into the loaf pan and bake for 55 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

As I’ve said in an earlier post, BD is a tall and highly-active man, so this loaf doesn’t tend to last long – but it freezes well, and, if by some miracle there is a slice or two left after a couple of days, it also toasts well.

I’ve also added shredded carrots and apple to bread:  it makes a denser, moist bread that won’t keep as long – after the first day we slice it and freeze it, and toast the slices; but it’s good with cheese (for me) or hummus.

And dessert at that dinner that prompted this post?  The fruit loaf was indeed Garbage Loaf, made with over-ripe bananas and a slightly suspect apple, and it complemented the raspberries and ice cream very well.

Pickles, Salsa, Coffee and Community

August 12, 2015

pickles

The tiny crossroads hamlet in which we live boasts two retail outlets – the feed store, where we buy birdseed in the winter, and a bakery.  More than a bakery, the shop – I’ll call it Rose’s – supplies not just bread, pies, tarts and the best cider donuts for miles, but pickles, salsa and jams.  And coffee. Rose works harder than anyone I know – the bakery opens at 6 a.m. to provide coffee and breakfast fare and closes at 6 p.m., and it’s Rose who is baking, pickling, and providing counter service for all those hours, six days a week.

I used to stop every morning for coffee before I drove to work, and Rose’s donuts and butter tarts were the highlight of many a department meeting.  Over the years, Rose and I became friends, although she has a reputation for being irascible. She’s also the hub for village news – when BD found a grey-and-white kitten in our garage early one summer’s morning five years ago, it was to Rose’s we went to see if anyone had reported her lost.  (They hadn’t, and Pye, all grown up now, is currently sitting on my desk watching me type.)  We tell her when we’re going away, so she’ll keep an eye on the house.  When I was buying coffee at seven a.m. weekday mornings, we’d talk about the fox cubs being reared in the old graveyard; the coyote family Rose saw every morning at five a.m. when she walked her dogs; the sandhill cranes which have returned to the area.  She’s told me who to hire to plough the snow, fix our furnace, pump the septic tank.

But in retirement, I have the leisure to make my own coffee in the morning, and I also needed to consider the money I spent – the coffee was all too frequently combined with a muffin, or a breakfast sandwich – depleting my purse and expanding my waistline.  But I miss going.  I miss our chats, I miss being greeted by her two Labradors, and her coffee is better than mine. Frankly, I miss seeing my friend, and finding out what’s happening in the village.  Dropping in every couple of weeks when we’ve run out of salsa or pickles or cranberry chutney isn’t enough.

So I will return to buying a morning coffee two or three times a week, but now I’ll walk or bike down, or stop in on my way to town for groceries.  It  will cost me a few dollars, but can you put a price on community?

Choosing Wisely

August 5, 2015

A few nights ago, we had dinner with two couples at a fairly expensive restaurant.  At first glance, this seemed both unwise – the meal would cost most of our entertainment budget for the month – and contrary to our desire to live simply.  But let’s examine this more closely.

Both of us enjoy and appreciate very good food, and this particular restaurant is very good, consistently featured in Where to Eat in Canada.  It also serves locally sourced foods, which is important to us.  The night was perfect for our patio table, and the company and conversation of our friends delightful.  We had a memorable meal – I ate caesar salad, a quail appetizer, and frites, followed by coffee and a whiskey; my husband had quail and pickerel- and the meal and tip came to about $120.00, as we expected.

As we left the restaurant, our friends asked to join us there again in about three weeks.  And – this is the important part – I declined, explaining honestly that we can’t afford it that often, which they understood.

But as I have reflected on that meal this week, I realized I declined not just because of the cost, but because I really don’t want to eat like that too often.  Not because it was expensive, or we overate (we didn’t), but because it was an experience I want to savour and remember as something exceptional.  Treats are not treats if they happen too often.  Good food is important, something we take seriously in our meal planning, preparation and shopping, but there is a difference between everyday good food and a very special meal.

Adjustments will be made to this month’s spending to accommodate this meal, money cut from both the entertainment and grocery budgets.  We’ve traded a couple of movies at our local art-house cinema and some more-expensive foods and beverages for those few hours on the patio.

But, for us, this meal was a wise choice, because of the quality of time shared with our friends, the immediate appreciation of the food, and the on-going pleasure of the memories engendered.  It was also a considered choice, discussed and planned for, the costs, not just financial but in our quality of life for the rest of the month, analyzed.  Did we choose wisely?  We believe we did.