Red Wine Chicken Breasts

I don't often buy chicken breasts, but when I do, I marinate them. Yep. Always. I like to ensure a moist breast and this makes it foolproof. Today I used this marinade, based on one in the Joy of Cooking:

• ¼ cup balsamic vinegar
• ¼ cup red wine 
• ¼ cup olive oil
• 2 tbs. chopped thyme
• 1 tbs. chopped rosemary
• 2 tsp. salt
• 2 tsp. soy sauce
• 2 tsp. black pepper
• 6 garlic cloves, minced
• Juice of half a lemon 

I let the breasts do their thing for about 2 hours and then dumped them into a baking dish and heated the oven to 425F. I had some mushrooms in the fridge, so put them in the bottom of the dish and then put the breasts, marinade and all, on the top and cooked them, uncovered, for about 30 mins. The result was delish!

I also put some chopped up cauliflower in to roast at the same time and steamed some fresh peas!

Homemade Chicken Stock - so easy, so good.

(pic is from Elana's Pantry - sorry, I was hungry and forgot to take my own pic!)

Homemade stock is so good for many, many reasons. Traditional Foodies seem to believe that it's basically the cornerstone of a good diet. We do it because we believe in getting as much nutrition from an animal if you're going to eat it (if you eat like this it makes being omnivorous the most ecologically sound choice!). Plus we're cheap and we buy good meat and this stretches it further. But mostly we do it because it tastes great.

Here's the thing. After we eat chicken (or any bone-in meat) we save all the bones, jellyish stuff and scraps. Yes, even off people's plates! It's going to be both frozen and boiled for many, many hours so any germs will be pretty much obliterated. Stick your chicken bones in a big ziplock baggie in the freezer and add to it over time (keep different sorts of meats seperate). You'll eventually have a bag or two full of bones and bits of gross looking things like cartilage.

You can do this either in a slow cooker or on the stovetop. Dump your (still frozen) bones into a large pot or the slow cooker. Add enough water to just about cover the bones. Remember that they will defrost and settle a bit while cooking. You definitely don't want to drown them (imagine using only 1 tea bag in a gallon of water), but you want them to be just about covered. Just. Now you'll add the holy trinity of stock veggies - carrot, celery, and onion. Don't peel anything. A couple of carrots, 2 sticks of celery and one onion cut in half should do the trick for most pots. Be warned - the next photo is really, really gross. But I wanted to show you how much water to use.

Now bring it to the boil (or set it on low if you're slow cooker-ing) and then reduce the heat to low. The trick is this - you don't want it to be boiling. You want to see some small bubbles coming to the surface. Now go away and leave it for as long as possible (covered with a lid - there should be no danger of it boiling over if it's simmering correctly). For me, this means overnight or all day. Because it's simmering so slowly and gently I feel fine about going out and leaving the pot cooking on the stove (at this point, you're pretty much using the stovetop as a slow cooker anyway).

Now set a colander in a large bowl or another pot and strain your stock (don't be like someone I knew who accidentally poured the stock down the sink!). Let it drip for a while. I usually have to use a couple of bowls because I tend to do a big batch. Let it cool then put it in the fridge. It should set to a firm to hard jelly with a lot of gross fat on the top. Scrape the fat off the top and chuck it out or feed it to a hungry animal. If you're pressed for time you can skip this step, but you'll probably want to try and skim the fat off the top of the liquid stock. You can freeze the stock in baggies - they stack nicely if you freeze them flat.

Now you have a really flavourful stock or broth that you can use for many, many things! Remember though, that we didn't add any salt and commercial stocks have a lot so you'll need to add a fair bit. The reason one doesn't add it when you're making it is so you have more control over the saltiness of the the finished dish that you use it in.

Once you try this stock in your soups, gravies, and especially risottos, you will not go back.

Easy Weeknight Roast Chicken

This is the weeknight dinner you can throw in the oven and ignore until it's time to eat. It's oh-so-moist and tender, has a rather gorgeous crisp skin and creates its own gravy. What more could you want?

Yes, it does take a while to cook, but you can do the advance prep (up until you put it in the oven) in the morning or the night before and put it in the fridge. Then when you come home from work, just put it right in the oven once you've preheated it.

Like most of my recipes, this is one you can tweak with whatever you have, but please, please, please don't leave out the citrus - that's where all the moistness comes from!

What you'll need:

• A chicken - 8lb is what I used here. I get free range hormone and antibiotic free ones from the farmer's market
• Baby potatoes
• 3 onions
• 2 pods of garlic (yes, the whole thing!)
• Olive Oil
• a lemon and an orange
• Bay leaves
  
• seasonings and herbs
  

OK! Start by drizzling a good amount of olive oil in your pan. You can also turn your oven on to 450 degrees farenheit to preheat.


Take your baby potatoes, scrub them and cut them in half and toss them in the pan.

Now cut up some onions and, leaving the root intact (see this post for a how-to), cut each half into thirds. There are 3 medium onions here. Put them in the pan along with about a teaspoon of salt, a good grind of black pepper, and some bay leaves if you have them (I used 4).


I like to rinse my chicken and then pat it dry. I also tend to rip out any really big globs of fat and toss them. You can do this and then plop it down on top of your veg.


Then take half and orange and a whole lemon and chop it roughly. You'll then put these up the chicken's bum, or more politely, the cavity. This will moisten your chicken from the inside out and help create really yummy pan juices.


Now drizzle a bit more olive oil over the skin of the bird (I like to rub it around so I'm not drowning it in oil) and sprinkle another teaspoon (or so) of salt, some black pepper and whatever herbs you have on hand. Fresh thyme, rosemary, and/or sage is nice. I happened to have a packet of Herbes de Provence on hand that a friend brought me (from France) so I used that.


I also put some whole, unpeeled cloves of garlic in the pan - as many as I have. I used 2 whole pods of garlic here!

Now bung it in the oven, which should be up to temperature. Set your timer for 30 mins. I call this the half-hour-sizzle (a term stolen from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, my fave meat cookbook writer). Then reduce your temperature to 350 and cook for another hour and a half or so (for an 8 lb bird). You don't have to check on it or baste it. You could even go out. This should be ample time to cook your chicken fully, but if you aren't sure, pull the leg away from the body. It should yield easily and reveal a hip joint (I think it's really called the thigh joint, but you know what I mean) that isn't at all bloody or pink.

I like to serve this with a green salad for maximum ease. Spoon some of the pan juices over the potatoes and onions on each plate and suck the garlic cloves free of their skin as you devour them with the succulent chicken.