Tandoori Chicken

Tandoori Chicken
 Not true Tandoori, because I don't have a 900' clay oven, but it tastes close enough to make me happy. I use lots of lemon juice to make up for the missing tang of yogurt.

Ingredients

A chicken's worth of parts. I cut up a whole chicken, but you could use 8-12 thighs
1/3 Cup of olive oil (needs to be an oil that won't solidify in the fridge)
1/3 Cup of lemon juice
2.5 T. of Tandoori spices (I got mine at Penzeys)
1 tsp of salt

Mix the marinade ingredients and marinade the chicken for 8 hours or longer.  Arrange chicken on a foil covered baking sheet (for easy cleanup) and bake at 375' for 30 minutes. Blast the heat up to 500' and cook until the skin is very brown and crisp looking.

Tandoori is usually skinless, but I love skin too much to remove it.

Simple Chicken Wings

I am enjoying the heck out of my new range.

Anyway, yesterday I found some frozen chicken wings (raw) in the freezer and defrosted them. Actually, I wasn't sure what the heck part of the chicken they were, they were frozen into a solid block. So I defrosted them and saw one of my favorite parts of the chicken, the wing!

Here is a super easy recipe. 3 ingredient...

Chicken wings
Butter
Louisiana Style Hot Sauce (or whatever your favorite brand is).

Melt some butter, pour in some hot sauce. Coat the wings. Broil them a bit far from the heat source, I use the 2nd from the top rack spot and that worked fine. About 5 minutes, paint on more sauce and flip, another 5 minutes. Paint and flip once more. They should be crispy and browned.

Oh yes, cover your pan with foil for easy clean up!

I like to dip these guys in mayonnaise.

Cranberry Walnut Bread

• 8 eggs
• ½ cup coconut oil or butter, melted
• ½ cup coconut milk
• I used half and half this time as I had it on hand and didn't have any coconut milk open.
  
• ½ cup sugar substitute
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 teaspoon lemon extract
• I used lemon juice, no extract on hand. About 1/4 cup.
  
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ⅔ cup sifted coconut flour
• I use Aloha Nu brand coconut flour which I buy online.
  
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 cup dried cranberries
• ½ cup walnuts, chopped
  

Blend together eggs, oil, coconut milk, sugar substitute, vanilla, lemon extract, and salt. Combine coconut flour with baking powder and whisk thoroughly into batter until there are no lumps. Fold in cranberry sauce and nuts. Pour into greased 9x5x3-inch loaf pan and bake at 350 degrees F (175 C) for 60 minutes. Remove from pan and cool on rack.

This comes from Nancy542 on the Low Carb forum

My guests raved over this. They couldn't believe it was low carb and gluten free.

The only thing I'd change about this bread is using sugar free cranberries however, they're impossible to find. Next time I'll probably just use a shredded apple instead of cranberries.

Grateful for hash!

We're talking about the kind you make in the kitchen with meat. I had a brisket that was less than perfectly yummy and the talented and lovely Allison suggested I turn it into hash. So, I happened to have a chayote (picture on left) on hand which I shredded in my food processor. I also chopped up some onions and pressed a few cloves of garlic. I cooked the onions and garlic in some duck fat then added the chayote, salt and pepper and some cayenne pepper. I cooked that until it started to brown up and the onions and garlic were nice and softened. I chopped up brisket in my food processor (quick pulses) and then added it and fried up the whole mess.Delicious! And it works well for any meal. For breakfast I put an egg on top.

I had even more brisket left and I made another has, this time I had some left-over root veggies I used. Next time I really need to include some green sweet pepper in my hash.

So, if you want use up some meat I'd suggest dicing it finely and making a nice hash out of it.

Found I had a picture of my hash in my camera

Better than Hummus -- Baba Ganoush!

I love Hummus but it has legumes which I think aren't so great for me. During my Hummus period my arthritis really flared up. So I went off in search of something more Paleo and someone recommended Baba Ganoush. It has all the same ingredients but is made with eggplant instead of chickpeas.

Here's my latest recipe:

1 - 1.5 # Eggplant
Tahini (5 Tbls or to taste)
Lemon Juice (1/8 - 1/4 cup)
1/2 tsp citric acid (optional but really good!)
2 regular sized cloves of garlic
Salt -- to taste

You can optionally peel your eggplant first and de-seed it if you want. Depends how much work you want to do. I suppose it is slightly more attractive, paler color, without the skin. But I suspect there are a lot of good nutrients in that deep purple skin. I leave the seeds in and the skin on generally. But I like to minimize my time spent cooking.

Slice the eggplant into circles. 1/4 inch to 1/2 inch thick. Roast the eggplant for about 30 minutes in a 300 degree oven or until slightly browned. Turn once during that time.

Put the roasted eggplant into your food processor and process until pretty much a paste. Add the other ingredients tasting as you go.

You can use this in place of the Hummus in the Avocado/Hummus Omelet recipe I posted recently.

First time I made this I used 2 giant garlic cloves and that was too much. This time I cut it down to one giant sized clove and I think that would be about 2 normal sized cloves. I love garlic but I prefer the lemon and tartness to shine through a bit more than the garlic.

One of these times I'm going to try this without the tahini. I actually don't like the taste of tahini plain, so I'm wondering if it really is adding anything to the Baba.

I never would have thought of adding citric acid (which comes from lemons) but it really does give it a nice flavor than just lemon juice alone. The video for Hummus from Dedemed.com suggested using citric acid. I found citric acid in bulk at the local Henry's (health food store). You can also buy it from Wine making supply stores, or online.

Perfect Cold Chicken

It's still Chicken Month.

What's better than a salad with moist, tender chicken in it? But most of the time when I put left-over chicken in the salad, it's kind of dry and overcooked. I have found the right way to make sure the chicken is perfect for left-overs, you must poach it gently!

Succulent Chinese Chicken

This recipe is sheer genius. Not only is it incredibly easy but you can both eat and drink your chicken. The poaching liquid is a nice, if somewhat delicate, chicken broth. I'm going to use it to make a stronger broth. I have 2 gallon sized freezer bags full of chicken bones and gibblets and I'll use them, with this broth, some onions, garlic, carrots and celery, to make a stronger broth tomorrow. It'll lose its Chinese characteristics but gain a lot more flavor.

It was easy to pull the meat off the bone and put into a big container for later use. I saved the bones, of course, for stock. The skin I'm going to try broiling and see if I can get it nice and crispy. Flabby, poached skin isn't my idea of a good thing. So everything used except the cluck!

Now, what to do with that lovely moist chicken?

I would suggest making a nice salad. Here's how I did mine today:

Approx. 1 Tbl of bacon drippings
About 1 Tbl of rice vinegar
A touch of your favorite sweetener (Stevia, honey, splenda) to equal about 2 tsp of sugar.

Microwave the bacon drippings until they become liquid. Briskly stir in vinegar and sweetener.

I used these things in my salad:

Green onion
Mixed baby greens with herbs
Black olives
Some dehydrated onion for crunch
Succulent chinese chicken (from above)
Bacon dressing

It is wonderful! In particular the dressing really goes well with the chicken.

Flatten that Chicken!

I'm excited. I have found something I really love. It is thrifty and delicious. It is butterflied or spatchcocked chicken.

Basically what you do is buy a whole chicken and flatten it. It isn't difficult at all, but it is a bit messy. Be sure you save everything you remove from the chicken and freeze it for making a good bone stock later on. And I mean everything, giblets, neck, breastbone, backbone. After you eat some chicken, save the bones!

I bought two chickens at Costco, .99 cents a pound. Compare that to $2.99 a pound cut-up fryer from Trader Joe's. What a deal.

Here's a tutorial of how to "spatchcock" a chicken, complete with pictures.

Ok, the price savings is nice but there are other benefits:

• More surface area: It is great for holding onto any sort of coating, like... ummm... a mustard crust perhaps?
• Faster cooking time: A whole chicken might take an hour or more to cook. A flattened chicken takes 30-45 minutes, depending on method and temperature.
• More skin! I adore eating chicken skin but you miss out on a lot of skin if you buy pre-cut up chickens.

I caught a glimpse of Jacques Pepin on PBS recently making this Mustard Crusted Chicken recipe and I just had to try it. I've butterflied a few chickens, thanks to Alton Brown's wonderful show displaying the technique, and when I saw that this was first cooked in a oven-safe skillet (to brown up the back, I suspect) it looked to me like it was winner. I've had such great luck cooking steak in skillet, then oven, that I could imagine cooking a bird this way would be fantastic.

The only differences were that I removed the legs and wings, misunderstanding his instructions which should just have had me cutting through the meat so they cook faster. But it also made the bird fit into my cast iron skillet a little better.

This chicken recipe cooks in a mere 30 minutes in the oven and the smell is intoxicating. The taste? Wow! I'm going to be using this recipe over and over.

I was trying to play a computer game upstairs while this chicken was cooking but the smell totally derailed my concentration. I had to stop playing and come downstairs to be closer to my meal.

Coconut Lemon Mousse

Ok, this one is super easy! Goes together fast but needs some time in the fridge to set up. I don't have exact measurements for sweetener, I tried about 3/4 cup of sweetening power and that was too much. So we'll guess, and please taste and adjust.

1 Can of Coconut milk (mine was 15 oz)
1/3 Cup of lemon juice (fresh is always best, but sometimes I cheat and use bottled)
Lemon Zest [optional]
1/3 - 1/2 Cup of sugar (or sweetener to that equivalency)
2 tsp of gelatin

Soften the gelatin on a little water in a bowl.

Microwave or cook the coconut milk until it gets hot, but you don't need to boil it. Add everything to the hot coconut milk and stir until the gelatin is dissolved.

You can pour into little bowls or just keep it in one large one.

I like to serve this on hot raspberries.

Egg Crepes with Berries

The last couple of mornings I've been eating egg crepes, doused in butter (ghee if you're really sensitive to casein), and drowned in slightly sweetened blackberries or raspberries.

What you need

2 Eggs
1 non-stick pan
Cooking oil
Frozen or fresh berries
[optional] A bit of sweetener, I use liquid splenda.
Butter

In a small non-stick pan I add some cooking oil and let it get hot.

The berries are easy. If they're frozen, pop them into the microwave for 30-45 seconds until they're heated and juicy. Add in sweetener and mix.

Meanwhile I break 2 eggs into a bowl and add a few Tablespoons of water, to thin the egg. I beat it very well with a fork. Then pour enough egg into the pan to just cover the bottom. I let it cook until fairly well set-up. Flip it over and just let it cook for a few seconds on the other side. Flip onto your plate and top with butter and berries.

If can imagine that if you weren't completely paleo with the dairy stuff, some sugar-free whipped cream would be delightful, or even some creme fraiche.