A bird in the oven

My friend Bruce (who hosted this weekends scary movie and sleep over extravaganza) gave me a few cook books to borrow that he thought I would like. One included "A bird in the oven and then some" by Mindy Fox - which gives 20 ways to roast a chicken, nice side recipes, and what to do with the chicken carcass so that the whole bird gets used to its best potential.

I adapted one of the recipes to fit the ingredients I had.
I used:

• 1 whole chicken (5 pounds)
• 1 lime
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 2 tablespoons unstalted butter, at room temperature
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1/2 tsp saffron
• 1 tsp freshly ground coriander
• 1 tsp coarse black pepper
• 1/2 tsp NuSalt
• 1 cup white wine (I kept it classy with Charles Shaw)

1. Preheat oven to 350* roasting setting
2. Clean the chicken, remove giblets/ neck and set aside (I just froze mine for another day.) Dry well.
3. Place Chicken in a oven safe pot/ dutch oven.
4. In a seperate pot/ cup boil 1 cup of water, add in raisins and let soak.
5. Zest lime over chicken, and squeeze lime juice over chicken.

6. combine all spices, butter, and soaked raisins in a bowl.



7. Using your (clean) hands rub the spices/raisin mixture all over the chicken, including under the skin.  

8. Put chicken in oven and roast about 15 minutes.
9. After 15 minutes, pour ~ 1 cup white wine over the chicken, continue roasting for about 1.5 hours or until internal temperature is 165*F.

As a side I roasted up some mixed vegetables/ fruit including:

• 1 potato
• 1 onion
• 1 red pepper
• 1 red apple
• 2 cloves garlic
• olive oil
• splash of white wine
• Black pepper

No fancy or exciting prep, just chopped, put in a baking dish and roasted along with the chicken.

I also had a lot of weird looking carrots from the garden so I chopped those up and roasted them as well with just some olive oil, salt and pepper. 

Here are some of my weird garden carrots (with a cheery tomato for size comparison)

Looks like legs that have to pee!

Had a few 'baby' carrots in there
 

 

In the end I wound up just throwing all of the vegetables into the pot with the chicken and it made quite a good one pot wonder of a meal.

Picadillo

Picadillo is a Hispanic dish. Cubans, Brazilians, and Mexicans (and probably every other South American country) has their own variation on the dish. It is traditionally a dish made with ground beef that is served over rice, or can be made in to empanadas. Since Jordan is Cuban, I've had the great pleasure of trying his mothers Picadillo on several occasions.

Jordan always tells me that his favorite foods are Cuban foods, which have a lot of fat in them. I try to make the argument that he could make some substitutions in the recipes to make the dishes healthier, but he says it will make them lose their flavor.

So... a challenge?

I took this Traditional Cuban Picadillo Recipe I found online, and analyzed the nutrition and modified it. Usually Cuban Picadillo also contains raisins, so I added a cup of raisins to my modified recipe, and to the traditional recipe when analyzing.

My Modified Picadillo Recipe Included:
*4 cloves of Garlic
*~ 2 tb olive oil
* 2 medium onions, finely chopped
* 1 large green bell pepper, chopped
* 1 tsp cumin
* 1 tsp oregano
*1 tsp fresh ground black pepper
* 1/2 tsp salt
* 1 cup beef broth (can use vegetable/ chicken/ just water)
* 1 Package Shady Brook Farms Lean Ground Turkey (20 oz raw, about 1 LB cooked)
* 2 small cans tomato sauce
* 2 medium potatoes (roughly peeled), diced
* 10 large green olives, cut
*~ 1 cup raisins

Instructions:
1. Saute onions, peppers and garlic in olive oil over medium heat, until softened.
2. Mix meat with spices, then add to pan with vegetables. Add broth, and tomato sauce. Let cook, covered at medium heat for about 15 minutes.
3. Add potatoes. Cook for an additional 15 minutes.
** note- I stated 'roughly peeled,' the original recipe said peeled, but frankly I enjoy the peel- and its where all of the fiber is! so basically I just lazily peel a potato so that about 2/3 of the skin is off, so the texture is better but I still can have the fiber and nutrients from some of the peel. You could do as you wish.
4. Add in olives and raisins, simmer until potatoes are fork tender.
5. Serve over (brown) rice or with a whole wheat tortilla!

Note- instead of ground turkey you could use a lean ground beef, ground chicken, or even diced up chicken breast or other lean meat. Megan actually came over for dinner, so I made her a batch that had tofu, and no beef broth- and she seemed to enjoy it as well! So be creative!

According to the website I got the original recipe from, the recipe makes 4-6 servings, which I found to be way off! There were 4 of us eating good size portions, and I'd say I still have at least 1/3 left. So honestly, I would say this makes about 8 servings. But of course, that may have something to do with my adding more vegetables. To be as fair as possible, below I compared the two recipes dividing them into 6 servings each:

The Nutrition Break Down:

The Original Recipe:

• 400 calories
• 20 grams fat- 6 grams Sat Fat, 10.5 MUFA,
  
• 35 grams carb- 4 grams fiber
  
• 23 grams protein

My Modified Recipe

• 360 calories
• 12 grams fat- 2.5 Sat fat, 6.5 MUFA
• 40.5 grams Carb- 5 grams fiber
  
• 23 grams protein
  

So, the nutrition facts do not look that much different, but again, honestly, considering volumetrics, you would not eat as much of the modified version as you would the original version (as in 1/6th of the recipe).
And Saving 8 grams of fat certainly is not too shabby!