Poultry Archives – Page 2 of 4

Win a Whole Organic, Kosher Chicken – a KOL Foods Giveaway!

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It wasn’t long ago that the majority of the food that I ate consisted of some kind of direction that involved, “add water, 1 TBSP of butter and stir”. Yep, if it was freeze-dried or loaded with preservatives, I was on it. It’s not like I didn’t always love food, I just was incredibly intimidated by cooking. I also never loved the idea of the cleaning up after the cooking. That part just seemed like a giant time suckage. Ugh. I was also single for the majority of my 20s and definitely had the whole, my-oven-is-used-for-storage-not-cooking thing down. It’s hard to cook for just one person. You end up throwing away leftovers and no one’s there to give you feedback so it was ready made meals and tofu hotdogs aplenty in my kitchen during those non-cooking years. One of my classic ‘dishes’ during this time in my life was the ‘just add frozen vegetables to Pasta-roni’ pasta. Again, and I know I’ve said this before, I have no idea how I’m not 500 pounds.

Fresh Turkey

Things changed for me when I moved to Israel in 2008, lived close to the shuk and started seriously dating someone who was not only willing to eat my culinary experiments but also very patient with me as well. It’s no coincidence that during this same time in my life I decided to eat healthier. When you have so much fresh produce available to you why on Earth would you eat instant anything? I started reading about the benefits of whole grains, what the big fuss is over sugar and most importantly, what the big fuss is about organic.

Now listen, I am a school counselor. The hubby is a PhD student. We do not have an expendable income, however, in our house there are some nonnegotiables. At this point, I almost primarily cook with coconut oil. I only buy non-GMO, organic cheese. We never have sodas and if we’re eating anything with sugar or bake anything requiring sugar, we generally use maple syrup or pure sugar. I also almost always purchase organic meats. Thankfully, several years ago, a dear friend of mine and fellow foodie, Annie (heck, she’s been my cooking inspiration for years! I wonder if she knows that? hmmm . . .), purchased a KOL Foods turkey for Thanksgiving. With this one purchase she opened my eyes to a whole world of conscious kosher. If you haven’t heard of KOL Foods before, then sit back, relax and let me drop some knowledge on ya.

Founded in 2008 by Devora Kimelman-Block, KOL Foods is the only kosher meat company that exclusively sources 100% grass-fed meat in the United States. Before this time, if you were kosher and wanted to eat sustainable, ethically-raised meat you basically had to become vegetarian. KOL Foods allowed the kosher consumer with conscience a way to bridge their beliefs with their wallet—but purchasing from KOL Foods you’re not only supporting a more ethical kosher, you’re also supporting local, small business. Today, KOL Foods offers glatt-kosher, organic-raised, grass-fed beef, lamb and no-nitrate deli; pastured chicken, turkey and duck; wild caught Alaskan salmon and other specialty goods. They ship frozen via FedEx nationwide or via buying clubs in select cities.

We Love Lime in Miami

Coconut Oil is My New Life Source

As a self-taught cook who now has a client with a requirement for Paleo-diet menu items, a diet that only allows for grass-fed meat, I was excited when KOL Foods reached out for a potential partnership. I believe in their product and in their mission and I wanted a chance to delve into some of their products. And delve I did! I was sent some delicious turkey legs that my hubby wanted to simply roast up and eat Medieval like but I wanted to get a bit more creative and play the flavors that are coming in season in Miami. I also didn’t want to work with the same ol’ expected turkey flavors—-sage, marjoram, thyme, etc. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE all those flavors but again, I wanted to experiment. The following is my experiment and it.was.delicious! The flavors of the salsa are strong but mix well with the natural light flavors of the turkey and I’m ALWAYS a suckers for turkey drippings mixed with honey marinade.

After the Marinating Time

Once you tempt yourself with the following recipe, make sure to click on “A Rafflecopter Giveaway”, high-lighted below, to be entered to win a KOL Foods 3 lb. roaster chicken! You can enter every day for the next 2 weeks via multiple avenues (such as liking Jewhungry on Facebook or Tweeting about the giveaway–all done through the rafflecopter link) but make sure you click on the link to be entered and connected. And don’t forget to share this post with friends so they can get in on the action too! Enjoy and good luck!

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You can also enter via our Facebook page. Click here.

The Colors of Miami

Turkey Ready for the Taking

Roast Organic Turkey Legs with Mango Salsa

For Marinade:

3 Tablespoons Coconut Oil
2 Cloves of Garlic, minced
1 Tablespoon of Honey
Juice of half a lime
Sea Salt
Pepper
Dash of Cayenne

For Salsa:

1/2 Mango, diced
1 Small Purple Onion, diced
1 Jalapeno, diced
1 Bunch of Cilantro, chopped
Juice of 1/2 of lime (add more if you need)
Dash of Sea Salt
Dash of Garlic Powder

Method:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine the ingredients for the marinade in a small bowl. Place turkey legs in a roasting dish. Using a basting brush, slather marinade on turkey legs, cover dish and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes. At this point, the coconut oil in the marinade with harden a bit but this is typical. Once the turkey legs have marinated for at least 30 minutes, uncover and place in the oven. Make sure you baste constantly. In my mind, you can not over baste. Turkey legs will take about an hour to cook, maybe more, depending on how often you baste.

While turkey is cooking, combine salsa ingredients in a bowl and mix well. Once turkey is complete, top turkey with salsa.

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Transitions, Shmansitions.

12/19/12

Before I get into this post, I must wish a very heartfelt ‘refuah shleimah’, a renewal of body and spirit to my partner in blog, Jeremy. Jeremy was hit by a car while walking home at night this past weekend. Thank Gd, only suffering a nasty black and blue nose; the worst of it being the fact that the person who hit him drove off without offering apologies and responsibility. If the past week hasn’t shown us enough, it’s a rough world out there folks. Please make sure you look both ways and always remember to stop and say you’re sorry.

That’s Jeremy, to my right, and the rest of our crew, being awesome on my wedding day.

It’s become increasingly obvious to me that one of the biggest challenges in parenting (for me at least) thus far, in all of my four and a half months of being a parent, is the number of transitions one goes through. Let me get real on your a** for a moment. I HATE transitions. I mean it. I hate transitions. And I’m a school counselor and I do not like using the word ‘hate’ but I’m gonna use it here because it’s true. The irony is, of course, that since I was 18 years old until we moved to Miami almost two years ago, I have been in a constant state of self-inflicted transition because of my inability to stay in one place. I lived in Chicago for 3.5 years and that was a wonder! I’ve lived for some amount of time in the following cities since I was 18 years old (I consider ‘lived’ being I had my own bed in an apartment, not crashing on a couch): Wooster, OH; Milan, Italy; Washington, DC; Marietta, GA; Asheville, NC; Athens, GA; Jerusalem, Israel; Chicago, IL; Ann Arbor, MI; and Miami, FL. I feel very strongly that I’m forgetting a city so maybe if Mom or Misty reads this they can fill me. Regardless, the point is I should be used to transitions by now but the fact of the matter is that I am not. I don’t like them and I’m terrible at them. So it was a surprise for me when I had a little revelation that much of parenting is deeply imbedded in transitions and I might want to get over myself right quick-like.

I mention this because we are about two and a half weeks away from yet another transition—day care. I spent the first 2.5 months of our baby’s life home with her during maternity leave. If I’m being honest, I have to tell you, I truly struggled during maternity leave. I was often unhappy during the first 2.5 months of my child’s life, not because I wasn’t head-over-heels for my little one but mainly because I couldn’t get to the purity of my love for her because I was dripping with anxiety and depression. I so vividly remember asking my sister-in-law, Caitlin (found at her blog, The Joy of Caitlin), “Why doesn’t anyone tell you how hard this is?” And she so honestly said, “Because we want you to have kids.” So it was difficult. It was difficult but it passed. My husband took over our baby’s care when I went back to work and has been with her for the past 2 months. He’s AMAZING with her and I count my blessings daily that he’s had this incredible opportunity to be with her. I feel much more comfortable sending a 5 month old to day care rather than a 2.5 month old but I am still terrified. I’ve already started telling my co-workers to be prepared to see me in a fit of tears the day we drop her off. I should mention that we are doubly blessed that the day care is across the parking lot of the school I work in and I should feel better (always with the ‘shoulds’. The ‘shoulds’ will drive you crazy) about sending her but I don’t. We’ve got such a nice little routine down and I feel a lot of comfort in the routine but come January 7th, we will become a fulltime working family. A coworker said to me yesterday, “Whitney. I don’t know how you leave her. I couldn’t leave my baby for 2 years.” For which I replied, “Well, my landlord forces us to pay rent and I like eating so that’s how.” Cheeky? Probably, but the point is we don’t have a choice so day care, here we come.

Someone Else in the Family is Starting to Enjoy Solids Too!

So what in the world does this have to do with today’s recipe? Absolutely nothing. I just needed to get that out so thank you for listening. Incidentally, this post’s recipe is one of my most favorite shabbat chicken recipes and follows in the footsteps of Jeremy’s Ina Garten post. My dear friend, Annie, made this chicken for shabbat dinner on the first shabbat I landed in Ann Arbor (the second time. That’s right, I went back for more) and I fell in love. It’s delicious, juicy and makes your guests think you’re a James Beard award-winning chef. Bon Appetite!

P.S. I’m taking words of advice/encouragement re: the whole day care thing so please feel free to post in the comments section 🙂

Ina’s Lemon Chicken with Croutons (adapted)

What!?

1 (4 to 5-pound) roasting chicken
1 large yellow onion, sliced
4-5 carrots, peeled and cut into 1/2 in. rounds
Good olive oil
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Garlic powder
4 lemons, quartered
6 cups (3/4-inch) bread cubes (I use fresh challah. It’s SO good)

How’s That Now!?

Remove any excess fat and leftover pinfeathers. Toss the onion and carrots with a little olive oil in a small roasting pan. Place the chicken. Place the lemons inside the chicken and around the outside. Brush outside of chicken with the olive oil, and sprinkle the top with salt, garlic powder and pepper. Tie the legs together with kitchen string and tuck the wing tips under the body of the chicken.

Roast for 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 hours, or until the juices run clear when you cut between the leg and the thigh. The key to the juiciness of this chicken is basting. Baste every 15 – 20 minutes! Cover with foil and allow to sit at room temperature for 15 minutes. (The onions may burn, but the flavor is good.)

Meanwhile, heat a large saute pan with 2 tablespoons of olive oil until very hot. Lower the heat to medium-low and saute the bread cubes, tossing frequently, until nicely browned, 8 to

10 minutes. Add more olive oil, as needed, and sprinkle with 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Place the croutons on a serving platter. Slice the chicken and place it, plus all the pan juices, over the croutons. Sprinkle with salt and serve warm.

Pepper

Carrots and Onions

Ready for the Oven

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Deep Breath Chicken

12/02/12

Setting Up Ingredients

Something happens when you have a baby. Something bizarre that NO ONE can prepare you for. People seem to lose their filter, especially women. I got a taste of this phenomenon when I was pregnant. People, especially women, loved to tell me their birth stories and more often than not these birth stories were horrifying! I get it. I get that experiencing and living through childbirth is something to be proud of, especially if that labor experience was a rough one. It’s a woman’s red badge of courage and you wanna get it out there–share how proud you are of yourself. However, it never made sense to me that a person, especially another woman, could tell a labor horror story to a visibly pregnant woman but people did and they did it a lot. I was looking forward to no longer hearing these stories once the little baby was here. What I didn’t expect to happen was that these stories would shift to strangers needing to tell you how well their babies sleep at night and how long they nursed their children for and yada yada yada. I’ve had strangers ask me if I breast feed like this is an acceptable question. That particular question is a trigger for me as I really struggled to nurse and eventually, just couldn’t produce enough so we went to straight formula. If you think one Shabbat night I didn’t break down for feeling betrayed by my body you would be mistaken. And so now, whenever anyone inappropriately asks me if I nurse I just throw it out there and watch the awkwardness set it, “Nope. Producing breast milk was nearly impossible for me so we feed her formula. Have a nice day!” You can see it on their faces, the “oh sh*t, did not expect you to be honest with me and now I feel super awkward” face. Maybe I should ease up on folks. I don’t see that happening but maybeI should 🙂

Recently, I had a coworker who I respect tell me out and out that what I was doing for my baby’s sleep routine was wrong. I mean she literally said, “You’re doing it all wrong”. Ummmmm, what? Don’t I look rested? Have you asked me if my baby is happy and healthy? Yikes. It was right then and there that I decided that this all had to stop. We, as women, NEED to stop judging one another for their parenting choices and we certainly have to stop scaring pregnant women and new mothers. I mean, for crying out loud, let’s be a little more nurturing here, yes? I’ll admit it, I’ve absolutely silently judged the choices of fellow parents but it is brutal enough out there as a woman, as a parent, etc. Therefore, I’m making the decision right here and now to stop it. It’s exhausting and not worth it. Why make it harder on each other? It boggles the mind. It really does. (Deep Exhale).

So why the rant? I could not stop thinking about this interaction all day on Friday. This, on top of some other stressful work stuff, resulted in me being THIS close to ordering Chinese food for Shabbat and calling it a day. But instead of taking the easy way out I seized the opportunity to cook while also having decent light for pictures and the result was what I am now calling, “Let’s All Take a BIG Deep Breath” Chicken. I hope you enjoy. Thanks for listening.

Take a deep breath—it smells DELICIOUS

What?

1 1/2 – 2 pounds chicken leg quarters
3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
Coarse salt and pepper to taste
1 small eggplant, cut into 1/2-inch dice
1 medium zucchini, cut into 1/2-inch dice
1 small sweet onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup white wine
14.5 ounce can diced tomatoes with juices
1/4 cup pimento-stuffed green olives, chopped
2 tablespoons capers, rinsed
2 tablespoons red-wine vinegar (I substituted for Apple Cider Vinegar)
1 teaspoon sugar
2 tablespoons freshly-minced parsley
2 tablespoons freshly-minced cilantro

How’s That Now?

1. In large skillet over medium high-heat, warm 2 tablespoons olive oil. Season leg quarters with ½ teaspoon salt and ½ teaspoon black pepper. Add leg quarters to pan, skin-side down. Brown chicken, turning once, 8 to 10 minutes per side. Remove chicken to plate and drain off all but 2 tablespoons oil.
2. Add eggplant to hot pan and cook, stirring, 5 minutes. Add remaining tablespoon olive oil, along with zucchini, onion and garlic. Cook 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
3. Raise heat to high and add white wine to pan, stirring to scrape up any browned bits. Add all other ingredients, except parsley and cilantro, and place chicken legs in mixture. Bring to boil, reduce heat to medium-low, cover and simmer for 35 to 40 minutes or until cooked through or until an instant read thermometer reads 170F.
4. Do yourself a favor and serve this with Israeli Couscous. You’ll have a lot of leftover vegetable topping and it’ll go nicely on top of the couscous. Sprinkle with parsley and cilantro and enjoy!

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