In my fantasy world, I have a hen house in my backyard, some Rhode Island Reds for laying fresh eggs and a butcher block in my garage for when they get too old. Oddly, two blocks away from my house, in the portion of East Helena that doesn't have paved roads but does get mail delivered to their street, you are allowed to keep chickens. This is still something I may secretly try when I get the gumption someday. Until that day, I have to rely on the grocery store to provide me with Hutterite Hens that, while they were not raised organically, are very local, very fresh, and very delicious.
Tonight, dinner is chicken, which, oddly, is on the menu only occasionally. We don't get fried chicken from the store, don't get nuggets from McDonalds and have a freezer full of lamb, venison and pork. To buy a chicken and ready it for use is an event in our house. One five pound carcass if going to get used at least 4 different ways.
The First Incarnation:
Tonight, its roast lemon and garlic chicken with beets and potatoes. There are so many great recipes for roasting a chicken out there. One is from that master herself, Julia Child. Julia Child's Roast Chicken. Another, that we enjoy, is from a well used and much loved cookbook by Alice Waters called The Art of Simple Food. She takes three pages to explain the art of roasting a beautiful chicken. Alice Water's Roast Chicken as taken from Ladies Home Journal. We mix an adaptation of these two and include tons of lovely garlic, minced and rubbed under the chicken skin. It sweetens as it roasts and add a delicious element to the stock.
The Second Incarnation:
After dinner, I will strip the remaining meat from the carcass and put it to simmer in a pot with carrot, celery, garlic and onion to make a deeply nourishing and delicious stock for use the rest of the month. There is something unique about homemade stock that also makes it highly nutritious. Simmering the bones releases gelatin and proteins that contribute to making chicken stock the cure all it seems to be. Alice Waters also gives a great tutorial on how to make stock but I love the explanation by Nourished Kitchen on the how and why of stock.
The Third Incarnation:
My husband, who stays home with our two youngest children during the day and works in the evenings, loves when we roast a chicken because it means some of the best lunch sandwiches you can fathom. Fresh roasted chicken with pesto and provolone, or chicken salad with raisins, curry, and homemade mayonnaise are soooo much better than a piece of bologna. My six year old, who brings his lunch to school, agrees.
The Fourth Incarnation:
Our busy Tuesday is on the schedule again this week and in my hour window to make dinner we plan on mini chicken pot pies. We make ours in muffin tins with whole wheat bottom crusts and cover them with bread crumbs for individual serving sizes. Please visit this site again on Wednesday for my Chicken Pot Pie recipe!
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