Osom Chicken Soup

It's been forever since I blogged and I've missed it. I've been cooking, just not writing about it. This week I got a delivery from Texas Daily Harvest that included an organic whole chicken. While at first it may seem a bit pricey ($14.50), I stretched every penny of that by making multiple meals out of one chicken.

Here's what I did. I put the whole frozen chicken in a crockpot. The chicken was bigger than the crockpot, so I had to weigh down the lid to make it stay. Thank you, Joy of Cooking.

I put olive oil on top of the chicken as well as some garlic herb seasoning. I put some water in the bottom, turned it on low, and let it cook while we slept. The next day I pulled the cooked chicken off of the bones and used some of it to make a chicken casserole.

Then, I put what was left in a large pot, along with some carrots, onions, garlic and seasoning and simmered it on low heat for a couple of hours. It made a lot of chicken stock. Like 64 ounces.
My daughter drank some of the fresh stock out of a mug and loved it. The weather is getting cooler and it was perfect for a chilly night.

Once that batch was made, I put the chicken and vegetables back in the crockpot to make another batch of chicken stock.

I used that second batch of stock as the base of a soup. I put in some vegetables from my Urban Acres share: red onion, white potatoes, zucchini, carrots, sweet potato and some white beans. It's cooking now and will make for a great dinner. I'll puree it to make it a thicker, heartier soup.

Organic chicken stock can be expensive. I like making my own and having the fresh chicken for other meals.

We may be able to use the chicken in soup, on salads or on its own with vegetables on the side.

A word from my daughter who wants to type (no editing by me):
I like the supe my mom made it was osom

Playing in the Kitchen with Fillo Dough

I got some organic fillo dough at the store and knew I wanted to experiment.

I kept coming out of the kitchen and putting plates in front of Stephen. Try this. Now this. And one more. He liked all three. The kids, well, not so much.

First, I made some fillo wrapped chicken nuggets. These are the ones they weren't as crazy about.

Next came the pizza rolls. These they liked.



Finally, something sweet. Little fruit tarts. Inside were apples, blackberries, cinnamon, sugar and then, of course, butter.


These weren't Mellmanized, so I didn't eat them. They were easy to heat up for a fast weeknight dinner, too, although they are definitely much better right out of the oven.

Making Your Meals Work Double Time

This was a quick weeknight dinner this week. I pulled out the trusty crock pot and put 2 pounds of frozen chicken tenders in it, then covered it with several cups of leftover organic soup I made earlier in the week.

I put it on low before I went to bed and it was ready to pop in the refrigerator in the morning. The chicken was super tender and shredded really easily. Later that night I came home and popped the chicken and sauce in the microwave, cooked some brown rice (the quick cooking variety leftover from my days of eating processed foods) and steamed some broccoli from our share. I squeezed some lemon juice on top of the broccoli while it was still in the steamer.

I put everything in bowls, then grated some fresh Texas Daily Harvest parmesan on top and added some hot chili sauce (I left the spicy off of the kids' plates). I also added some soy sauce and ladled some of the soup from the crockpot on top.

It took about 20 minutes to put together and was really very good.

Chicken, Rice and Broccoli Bake

This was basically a free for all. In other words, I sort of followed a recipe for Easy Rice Pilaf, but adjusted to make use of more produce and added chicken to make it a one-dish meal. I used the following ingredients:

• Chicken Broth (2 cups)
• 1/2 onion, diced
• 1 stalk of broccoli, including stem, diced
• 1 cup of long grain brown rice
• 2 tablespoons organic butter
• 3/4 pound chicken breast tenders
• Seasoning of your choice (rub mix, poultry seasoning, salt, pepper, whatever)

Melt the butter in a skillet over medium high heat. Add the onion and broccoli and cook them until the onions are translucent.

Add the brown rice to the pan and cook until it's light brown:

Add the chicken broth and cook until it comes to a low boil:

Add it all to a small baking dish, place the chicken tenders on top. I put some pepper, sea salt and garlic salt, and Memphis Rib Rub on top of the chicken.

After it is assembled, cover it with foil and bake it in a 350 degree oven for 45 minutes or until the chicken is cooked.

We added some shredded cheddar cheese after I took this picture. You can add it or not. But, this was really tasty and there were leftovers for Stephen's lunch.

A Quick Sunday Lunch

I put together this quick and easy lunch for my family, using newly acquired produce from our share and chicken tenders I purchased in my weekly shopping. I sprinkled some herbs de provence, garlic salt and sea salt on the chicken.


I cooked them in a little bit of olive oil:

I put together a quick salad and sliced an apple. And, here is lunch:

Homemade Chicken Nuggets

I found 100 Days of Real food and have been following her blog. I borrowed her recipe for homemade chicken nuggets and modified it by substituting panko bread crumbs for her whole wheat bread crumbs. I used 1/2 pound of chicken thighs and 3/4 of a pound of chicken cutlets from Whole Foods.





I put the egg in one bowl and the dry ingredients in another. Once the chicken was breaded, I threw them in a frying pan with a little bit of olive oil.

Here's what we ended up with after just a few minutes:

I served these with roasted butternut squash and homemade apple sauce. The kids were very happy with this dinner. It made about 40 nuggets (give or take, this is just an off-the-cuff guess because, honestly, I didn't count them.)

This is a definite do-over.