Category Archives: Organic Mama Cafe

Oct 22
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Oven Roasted Chicken in Ten Easy Steps

By | Recipes | One Comment
One of the reasons people don’t like to cook whole chickens is the gross-out factor. The cold, clammy skin…pulling out the gizzards. It’s not a romantic picture. However, the final result of a beautiful, golden roasted chicken IS a beautiful sight! So is the money you save by using an entire chicken and discovering how many meals you can get out of it. Not to mention the extra nutrients you get by using the bones to make your own homemade chicken stock.
Can you learn this? Of course you can. And with, I promise – minimal gagging. Let’s begin. And, as usual- please read the WHOLE recipe before you start cooking.
A little reminder about cooking a chicken. While you’re learning, start this a couple hours before you need to eat it or even the day before. It’s not that difficult to slice off some chicken breast or pull off the drumsticks to warm up for dinner if you’re done a little early. However, making small people sit around while the chicken finishes cooking is not fun for anyone (mostly you!). 

Organic Mama Café’s EASY Oven Roasted Chicken
Preheat oven to 450° F. Place oven rack in the middle.
Ingredients
½ onion
½ garlic bulb
½ lemon
½ c. olive oil or butter
2 T. Sea Salt
2 t. Pepper
1 1/2 T. dried Herbs of choice – rosemary, oregano, sage, thyme
1 whole organic chicken (defrosted – or it will definitely take longer to roast!)
Tools
2 small bowls 
1 roasting pan – One with a roasting rack is great but a pyrex oven proof glass baking dish or similar will work too
1 sandwich size plastic bag (we don’t usually use plastic but this is a one time thing)
1 large plastic bag (for chicken bones)
Do all the “clean” stuff first
1.Cut all veggies and place extra in the fridge
2. Place 1/3 cup Olive oil or butter in a small bowl
3. Place salt and pepper & herbs of choice in a bowl
NOW – get your chicken out and place it right next to your roasting pan 
I pull the garbage straight over to where my pan is
4. Slide the chicken straight out of the package into the pan, minus the goupy juice. You still haven’t touched the chicken at this point. Toss the bag right into that garbage can!
5. Open the small plastic bag – and keeping on hand clean, pull the innards out of the chicken (they’re usually in a bag). Place them in the plastic bag and throw them in your freezer. We’ll talk about how to use them next week.
6. With the same hand holding the chicken, add the ingredients in this order
olive oil or butter
salt and pepper & herbs (roll the bird around to coat the inside)
Shove the onions and garlic and lemon inside too
and toss the lemon inside too. 
7. At this point, some people truss (tie up) their chicken. I don’t have time for this nonsense – but I do pop the wings behind the chicken so they don’t burn. Here’s what you do. Place the chicken breast up (This is controversial. Some folks swear birds should be cooked breast down but this has always worked for me). Then, grab one of the birds wings and slide your hand up to the joint that attaches it to the body of the bird. Break the joint so that you can slip the wing under the cavity of the bird. I also break the joint in the middle of the wing to make this easier. When you’re done, both wings should be folded behind the bird’s body. See the final pic for an example.
Now, you can wash your hands because you’re done touching the bird.
8. If you like, you can brush some olive oil on the bird’s breast and toss 2 t of sea salt on it
9. Pop the bird in the oven and after 10-15 minutes, turn oven down to 350 degrees.
10. Cook bird 20 minutes for each pound. If you’re not using a roasting rack, it may take a little longer. Just check the temp!
Mmmmm…golden brown bird. Delicious!
The safest way to ensure a bird is done is to use a thermometer. According to www.allrecipes.com, the bird is done when ” inner thigh (close to but not touching the thigh bone) reads at least 165 degrees F (74 degrees C)”. If you don’t have a meat thermometer, stick a knife into the thigh area. If you’ve cooked it for the full length of time and the juices comes out clear, it’s usually done. “Done” meat should be tender and juicy and come apart easily.
Pull the bird out and let it rest for 10 minutes before you slice it – so the chicken will stay nice and juicy.
And there you have it. Easy chicken in 10 steps! When you’ve taken all the chicken off the bone (I usually do within two days of cooking it), throw the bones and reserve juice into the large plastic bag and freeze it. We’ll use it to make chicken stock another time.
Oct 20
0

Our Fall 2010 Garden

By | Organic Gardening | 4 Comments

Several years back, my mother-in-law (God bless her, sweet woman!) agreed to let me build a garden box in her back yard so we could do something fun together that we both enjoyed. We forged ahead, filled the boxes with compost and started planting. Our first gardening venture went great and we enjoyed a good harvest of plants and flowers.

Then…dum, dum, dum… I got pregnant. Everything I loved about gardening turned to dust…really…because I let most of it die. The smell of my favorite herbs – rosemary, basil, thyme etc. – made me want to turn and run the other way. Thankfully, the herbs grew – though unloved at the time. Though I’ve been gardening on a smaller scale since then, I was using most of my nurturing energy on babies.

Well, my break has lasted long enough. I’m ready to be back in the garden, breathing in the fresh clean air, feeling the dirt between my fingers and longing to eat something I’ve grown. Alas, our garden space looked a bit different…

 I have to give my mil credit for planting flowers
and tomatoes in it, especially when she was just as busy as me – 
babysitting grandkids!

I  needed help cleaning out those boxes  – SOOO – when I saw this fellow hanging around, I roped him doing into some work!

In the past, we filled our gardens with compost – which can be expensive to buy and takes time to make yourself. This year, we decided to try “lasagna gardening” instead and it’s proven to be so much easier.

Here’s how it works. Instead of going through the process of buying or making compost, you just create layers of compost ingredients. These layers break down over time and create super rich garden soil. It’s the perfect lazy gardener’s garden! You don’t have to wait for the layers to disintegrate – you can plant immediately. And – no digging required. (Um, unless you let your previous garden go to seed. Whoops!) Just lay down some paper and start this process anywhere in your yard.

This is what we did. After digging the giant weeds out of the garden, we put down a layer of cardboard and some layers of newspaper & hosed them till wet.

Then, We layered straw, compost (already in the raised beds), manure (from my friend who has goats), dried leaves and pine needles until the boxes were filled again.

Finally – the fun part! We planted seeds – chard, broccoli, carrots, kale, radish, spinach, chamomile, catnip, bachelor buttons etc. – and a whole bed dedicated to onions and leeks. (Onions are an obsession of mine!!) We threw a thin layer of straw over the top of the beds to help the soil retain moisture (spongy). The seeds need to stay moist for the next few weeks till they all germinate.

We have already seen a few tiny little plants coming up but I’ll post pics as they get bigger!

These are some other things you can use in a lasagna bed – pretty much anything you can compost goes in there.
Peat moss
Manure
Dried leaves
Fruit and veggie scraps (I like to chop these up or blend them so they break down faster)
Vegetation scraps from around the yard
Coffee grounds
Shredded newspaper

And – to answer the questions some of you are asking about what to plant…

These are the things that can be planted in Arizona right now.
Beets
Broccoli
Brussel sprouts
Cabbage
Cauliflower
Carrots
Chard
Collard greens
Lettuce
Leeks
Kale
Endive
Garlic
Onions (YES!)
Parsnips
Peas
Radishes
Spinach
Turnips
Beets

Here’s a link to a great calendar by the U of A on gardening in the low desert.

Any of you planting a garden? What plants are you putting in? I love to get comments from you!

Oct 18
0

My Summer Harvest

By | Organic Gardening | 2 Comments

Some of you know I decided to grow a watermelon vine on my back patio this summer – right next to the mixed summer squash. Somehow I missed the memo that the vines would encompass my entire backyard (I have a townhouse!).

The summer squash vine grew over into our neighbor’s yard – who is a really great sport. We kept finding these on our back wall.

 They are some kind of summer squash and tasted kind of like spaghetti squash.
Here’s the watermelon that survived (sort of).
 This thing was SO heavy!! This heirloom variety, Moon & Stars, 
will grow to between 25 and 40 lbs. 
It is also beautiful with white and yellow “stars” on a field of green.

I also grew chard all summer (so yummy!) and easy stuff like mint. It was just so hot this summer I couldn’t bring myself to do much in the garden. Watermelon lessons: They need lots of room (either a 15’X15′ patch or a fence where you can train them and remember to support the fruit) and good fertilizer (like fish emulsion) every few weeks. Ripeness: watch for the yellow patch on the bottom and don’t wait for the little stem to turn brown (this advice was everywhere on the internet and in my books). This one never did – after months (!) – and it cracked in the last big storm, rendering it inedible. According to advice my farm girl mom gave me years ago, the huge yellow spot it had means it would have had great flavor and sugar content. Of course, I didn’t see it because I was waiting for the stem to turn brown. Oh well.

Now the weather is great and I’m off to help put in a garden this morning. This week, I’ll post pics of my large raised garden and the one I’ve been working on with my sister-in-law. Hopefully they’ll inspire you to grow your own!

Oct 15
0

Homemade Almond Butter

By | Recipes | 2 Comments

I’ve had a lot of requests for the homemade almond butter recipe that I took to my visit to ABC15’s Smart Families. It’s so easy, it’s almost not a recipe!

I make my own almond butter because I can monitor exactly what goes into it (oil, salt, sugar etc) and it’s cheaper as well. If you didn’t realize that almond/peanut butters often have unhealthy things in them, check the ingredient list on the one in your pantry. Surprise!

Here are a few of the ways I use almond butter – usually in place of peanut butter
Apples and almond butter
As protein in a fruit smoothie
Ants on a log (celery boats filled with almond butter and topped with organic raisins)
Almond butter and honey (or jam) sandwich
On toast for breakfast

Make Homemade Almond Butter
1. Place 3-6 cups of crispy nuts* in the food processor, depending on how big your food processor** is.  Don’t fill it much more than half or the nuts won’t pulverize properly.

2. Turn it on – high (see – not brain surgery!). 
3. Let the processor go – you might stop and pulse it for a while – until the nuts are pulverized. If they look like the pic below – keep going a few seconds longer. But, remember that almonds are going to be a little chunkier than peanuts.

4. Continue to process the nuts till they turn into almond butter. If you’re impatient like me and you don’t want to burn out your machine, add a little organic olive oil (1-3 T) until it’s “buttery”. As usual, just add a little at a time so you don’t end up with almond soup. You can substitute unprocessed, organic virgin coconut oil for the olive oil – but the butter will become pretty hard in the fridge if you do.

5. Store in the refrigerator. I can’t really say how long it will keep – because it never lasts long enough at our house to go bad.
*You can just use raw almonds out of a bag – but the crispy nut recipe gives the almonds a richer, toastier flavor

**You can also use a Vitamix to do this but not everyone has one of these incredible machines.

I said this in my post on homemade hummus – but I’ll say it again. A food processor it truly an invaluable kitchen tool and it doesn’t take up much space. If you don’t have one – you can find some great prices on Amazon – here.

Just a note on almonds…
As of 2007, almonds sold by handlers (i.e. non-growers) in the United States are required by law to be “pasteurized”. The intention of the pasteurization is to limit possible outbreaks of salmonella poisoning in the general public. Sadly, the method – super steaming the outside of the nut or gassing it – invalidates the “raw” categorization. These nuts go rancid a lot faster. Thankfully, the law does allow you to buy “real” raw nuts directly from growers.Here‘s a well written explanation of the process.