Happenings on the Ranch

Okay, this is one more recipe in my little mini series about creating four meals from your own homemade chicken stock.  Really, you can use the chicken from making your stock in any manner you see fit.  I just thought it’d be nice to give you a starting point.

So, after you’ve made the stock and used some of it and the chicken to make homemade chicken pot pies, you should have roughly 2 to 3 cups of cubed chicken and 3 to 4 cups of stock left.  This recipe uses just a little of that, but for good reason.  Saving the last of it for the last recipe is sooo important (because it’s one of my favorites!).

Chicken and Cauliflower Stuffed Peppers with Roasted Veggies

Ingredients:

• 5 bell peppers
• 1/2  medium onion, chopped
• 4 T butter
• 1 C cubed, cooked chicken
• 1 1/4 C chicken stock
• 2 C cauliflower florets
• 1 carrot, chopped
• 1/3 C uncooked rice
• 1 t Worcestershire sauce
• 1 C mozarrella cheese
• 1 C bread crumbs
• Salt and pepper to taste

1. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cut the tops off the peppers, and remove the seeds. Cook 4 peppers, 1 1/2 C cauliflower and carrots in boiling water for 5 minutes; drain.  Sprinkle salt inside each pepper, and set aside. Chop the remaining pepper into bite-sized pieces, toss with cauliflower and carrot and set aside.
2. In a large skillet, saute onions in butter until clear. Season with salt and pepper. Stir in the chicken, rice, 3/4 cup broth, 1/2 cup cauliflower and Worcestershire sauce. Cover, and simmer for 15 minutes, or until rice and cauliflower is tender. Remove from heat.
3. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. (175 degrees C). Place a spoonful of chicken mixture in the bottom of each pepper.  Add 1/8 C of mozzarella, another layer of chicken mixture and top with another layer of cheese.  Top with some of the bread crumbs.
4. Place peppers open side up in a baking dish.  Layer the cauliflower, carrot and pepper mixture around the stuffed peppers in the dish.  Season with salt and pepper.  Pour remaining 1/2 cup chicken stock evenly over veggie mix.  Sprinkle veggies with bread crumbs. 
5. Bake uncovered for 25 to 30 minutes, until heated through and veggies in pan are nicely roasted and tender.

There you have it.  Use the peppers as a main with the additional roasted peppers on the side.  Or you can cut the peppers in half to use as a side dish for something else.  Either way, it’s the third dish using that one original chicken and chicken stock.  The last one?  My yummy homemade chicken and dumplings.  Stay tuned!

~Karin

So, yesterday I gave you my recipe to making your own chicken stock.  In that I promised you could make four meals from the chicken and the resulting stock.  This chicken pot pie recipe will allow you to make enough for dinner for four PLUS lunch the following day or day after.  Any meal I can cook once and get two meals out of, I’m all about!

Of course in any recipe using crust you can use refrigerated pie crusts which are quick and easy and you can keep on hand ready to use.  I prefer to use my own recipe for crust because it just comes out flakier and yummier.  I really do think it makes the dish that much better.  Don’t feel guilty if you don’t make your own.  But if you’d like to give it a try, here’s my fool-proof crust.

Ingredients:

• 2 C flour
• 1 t salt
• 1 C cold lard
• 1/2 C cold water

Now, I know there is an aversion to using lard for many people.  In my way of thinking it’s much healthier than using highly processed vegetable shortening filled with GMOs.  If you can’t get rendered lard straight from your butcher (the best kind) you can find it in the grocery in blocks.  That lard is a bit more processed but I still think it’s better than shortening.  If you prefer to use shortening, use 1/2 shortening and 1/2 butter and be sure it’s very cold.

I use a food processor for this crust because it’s easier and less messy.  If you don’t have one, you can certainly do this by hand.  In the processor bowl, combine the flour and salt.  Cut in the cold lard by pulsing the blade until the mixture looks like coarse bread crumbs.  Be careful not to heat up the lard (hence the pulsing).  Move the mixture to a large bowl and mix in the cold water until it forms a ball.  Divide the ball in half, wrap in plastic and refrigerate at least one hour (can be refrigerated overnight if you want to do this the day ahead).

This crust is enough for any 9″ pie you want.  Simply roll out the dough (use lots of flour on your board and your rolling pin) when you are ready to use it … one ball for the bottom crust and one for the top.  It’s light and flaky.

Now, for the chicken pot pie.  You can use the above crust or any refrigerated pie crust and make one 9″ pie if you prefer.  I make individual pies, however, so I can serve the hot ones for dinner and save the smaller ones for lunches.

Ingredients:

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F
2. In a small saucepan, cook the potatoes, carrots and celery in 1 cup chicken stock until tender.  Drain, reserving the chicken stock.
3. In another saucepan over medium heat, cook onions in butter until soft and translucent. Stir in flour, salt, pepper, and celery seed and combine completely. Slowly stir in all chicken broth and milk and whisk until thoroughly combined. Simmer over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, until thick. Add chicken and potato mixture, mix, and heat until warm throughout.

To make enough for four dinner pies and four lunch pies:

1. Roll out enough dough to create a top and bottom crust for four soup crocks.  Place the chicken mixture in the bottom crust of each crock.  Cover with top crust, seal edges and cut away excess dough.  Poke several fork holes in the top crust.
2. Put remaining chicken mixture in four ramekins and top each with remaining crust (no bottom crusts on lunch pies).
3. Bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes.  Remove lunch ramekins to cool and cook remaining crocks an additional 10 minutes or until crusts are golden brown.  Cool 10 minutes and enjoy!
4. Allow ramekins to cool completely then store, covered, in the fridge until ready to eat for lunch.

If you prefer to make one large pot pie and just eat the leftovers later, then follow these instructions:

1. Place  bottom pie crust in a 9″ pie pan.  Place in pre-heated oven for 5 minutes to slightly bake the bottom crust.
2. Place the chicken mixture in the bottom crust.  Cover with top crust, seal edges, and cut away excess dough. Make several small slits in the top to allow steam to escape.
3. Bake in the preheated oven for 30 to 35 minutes, or until pastry is golden brown and filling is bubbly. Cool for 10 minutes before serving.

Either way you’ve got a tasty, homemade pot pie using all your own ingredients.  Yummy comfort food.

Next time, I’ll give you two more ways to use the remainder of that chicken and chicken stock for a total of four meals.  Of course, if you have a creative way to use cubed, cooked chicken in your recipes let me kow.  I’m always looking for new recipes!

Many holiday recipes call for chicken broth or stock.  I honestly have a hard time buying chicken stock in the store because I know where the chicken to create that stock came from.  Even if it’s organic, it doesn’t guarantee me that the chickens were treated humanely.  So, I opt to make my own from our free-range chickens in large batches and keep it in the fridge or freezer until I need it.  The good thing about making your own is you can source your own chicken and veggies without adding any yucky ingredients (like msg) to the broth.  It also enables you to have enough chicken and stock to make four meals … yes, four!

I usually start with a whole bird.  Sometimes, if I’ve opted to make a chicken dish (fried or bbq) I will just use the remaining parts of the bird and reduce the amount of water and veggies.  But, let’s assume I’m prepping the whole bird.  I generally will use whatever veggies I have on hand to flavor the stock.  But, to get you started, let’s go with a basic recipe.

Here’s what you need:

Place the whole bird (whole or in pieces) into a large stock pot.  Add enough water to completely submerge the bird plus another two inches.  I’ve never really measured, but I’m guessing this is probably about 8 cups of water.  Bring the water to a boil, then reduce the heat to simmer the chicken for about an hour or until the chicken is cooked through.

Remove your chicken from the pot and let it cool.  Remove all the skin and meat from the bones and return the bones and skin to the pot of water.  Put the meat into a seperate bowl and let it cool completely.  Cover and put it in the fridge for your recipes during the week.

Add the onions, celery, carrots, garlic and a teaspoon of salt to the stock pot.  Simmer the stock for about 3 to 4 hours.  Let it cool, uncovered, then strain to remove the bones, skins, etc.  Once it’s completely cooled any fat will rise to the top and you can spoon it off if you like.  You can also add more salt if you want.

Store your homemade stock in a closed container in the fridge if you plan to using it within the week.  For longer storage, freeze it and it will keep at least 8 months.

Once you know how to make your own stock, you can improvise.  If I don’t have celery, I add celery seed instead.  Instead of using garlic, you can use a bay leaf.  The possibilities are endless to flavoring your stock to you and your families’ taste.

Now, what do you do with the stock and that chicken you’ve got?  Tomorrow I’ll post my recipe for chicken pot pie.  This is NOTHING like the pot pies you’ve ever had from the store – more like an old-fashioned comfort food.  I’ll also give you my recipe for pie crust if you want to really be ambitious and make it from scratch … get your lard ready.

Until tomorrow ~Karin