Category Archives: Recipes

Nov 05
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Staying Healthy When Everyone Else is Dropping Like Flies Around You

By | Natural Health, Recipes | 3 Comments

We’ve reached the time of year when the darkness of night comes sooner and lasts longer. In it, I find the  reflective, quieter part of me beginning to surface. I find I’m ready for bed earlier and my body seems to want the rest. Listening to my body is a big part of my staying healthy – and keeping my kids that way. Since it’s getting to be that time of year – when flu and cold season is beginning – I thought a little visit back to what I posted last year about building a healthy immune system might be in order.

How to stay healthy when everyone else is dropping like flies around you. Remember that rest, good nutrition and exercise are the best way to get started on a healthy immune system. As my mom used to say, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

Here‘s what I said last year about staying healthy and it still holds.

And, if you’re already in the throes of the season’s sickly woes, here’s a good recipe for chicken noodle soup, click here.

Healthy Blessings.

OM

Oct 22
0

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 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.

Oct 13
0

Homemade Hummus

By | Recipes | No Comments
And now, a quick break from my Finding Culture in Phoenix posts to finally offer up a recipe some of you have been waiting so patiently to see. I have had a few frustrating weeks of no camera and the pixels on my current cell are just too low to get a good blog pic.
This is the of homemade hummus I took to my visit on ABC15’s Smart Families, I got a lot of requests for the recipes for the hummus and the homemade almond butter. I’ll do another post about the almond butter, another super easy recipe, by the end of the week.
Now, being a frugal and organic mama, I try to cook the beans I use for recipes like this from scratch. I do this for a few reasons, including….
1. It’s cheaper. While I can buy a can of organic beans for about $1.09 (or less on sale), I can make about 5 times that amount of organic beans by buying them in bulk.
2. Avoiding canned food because of safety issues associated with BPA in can liners. A few companies are now using non-BPA liners and you can see a list here.
3. I can cook a lot at a time and freeze it for later use or just have an unending supply of hummus!
If you’re thinking that making beans from scratch sounds like a lot of work, I can reassure you that it’s not. It just takes a little planning. You can see how to make them right here.
Now, I do give an ingredients list but feel free to add a little more (or less) fresh garlic if you like and adjust the salt to your taste. It’s always better to add a small amount of something so you don’t have to go back and find more garbanzo beans to even out too much lemon or salt.
Also, I use a food processor for this. A food processor is an invaluable tool for a cook who has a lot to do and doesn’t want to mess around with a bunch of different tools. I can shred, chop and otherwise pulverize things that would take me forever to chop in this thing. If you don’t have one, you can get a smaller one here or a larger one here.
Hummus Recipe
Ingredients
2 1/2-3 cups garbanzo beans or one can organic beans, reserve the liquid
2 tablespoons Tahini, sesame seed butter – you can skip this in a pinch but it is going to change the texture & flavor a bit
4-6 peeled cloves of garlic
2 T lemon juice (more to taste)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
black pepper to taste
*Optional – ingredients like red bell peppers, spinach, etc or add a little spice like red pepper flakes
Place all the ingredients, minus the bean liquid, into the food processor and blend till creamy.
If it’s too thick, add a little bean liquid – just a few tablespoons at a time – till it reaches the consistency you like.

 

If you like you can drizzle a little olive oil over the top before serving with your favorite chopped veggies. Ours are red, green, yellow and orange bell peppers, carrots, celery, jicama, cucumber, zucchini etc. Just take your pick.
See – told you it was easy!!