Wednesday, January 27, 2010

A Whole Pot o' Chicken!

Well today I did some cooking for some friends. They're going through a rough time and I wanted to help out so I figured some frozen meals would be nice. I pulled a whole chicken out of the freezer a couple of days ago and poached it this morning with carrots, celery, onions, garlic and pepper. Once the chicken was cooked through I carved it and looked at my options. I wanted to have enough meat to make soup with that amazing stock I had just made. I kept the breasts whole for a meal themselves. I also had a bunch of bits of chicken left over afterwards. So I decided to throw together a chicken potpie with the bits and using some frozen pastry dough that I had made a couple of months ago. For my soup I strained the liquid, skimmed the fat, put half of it in the freezer and heated the rest up with some carrots, celery, thyme, basil and oregano. I also threw in the chicken bits left on the carcass and something I had never heard of before I started dating a dutch boy: Maggi. You might recognize the bottle - a brown bottle with a red cap and a red and yellow label. Now, my husband is dutch but Maggi is Asian inspired... so why do I blame this knowledge on him? Well, thanks to Pirates of the Caribbean we've all heard of the East India Trading Company. What most people don't realize is that the original name of said company was the Dutch East India Trading Company. The Netherlands may be small but those Dutch people sure got around. So, much of Dutch culture - particularly in relation to their food - is actually East Indian culture. Which is also why we eat Nasi Goreng in my house now!
Anyway, I also whipped up a batch of Chickpea Chocolate Chip Cookies today using dark brown sugar and to be honest I thought I'd be able to taste the dark flavor more than I did, but that's okay, they're still awesome.
I've still yet to make dinner for my own family and I still have to pick what I'm doing with those chicken breasts. Normally it wouldn't be so hard for me to decide but I need it to be freezer friendly. For our own dinner I'm craving salads so I might make my Sante Fe Chicken Salad - not very loosely based on the menu item at Earl's. Seasoned chicken strips, fresh greens, dates, corn, avocado, lime vinaigrette... I don't add the black beans or the crispy tortilla strips like they do at Earl's however.
Anyway, I'd best go and finish cooking and keep my baby from eating our DVD player.

TTFN

Mrs. Vander Leek ;)

No comments:

Post a Comment

I would love to know what you think of my recipes, or even of my antics! Let me know!