The Prep: Lemon, Chicken, Rice Soup

This is a follow-up meal behind the cabbage and chicken meal earlier. I used a chicken stock from the chicken and a couple additional ingredients to make a great zesty soup that'll brighten your spirits on a gloomy winter day.

Stock

ingredients:

chicken carcass

chicken neck

chicken tail

giblets

1 large onion

2 cloves of garlic

8 cups of water

This is really easy. Except for one thing.

Pour the water into the crock pot and turn it to low.

Take all the meat left on the skeleton of the chicken you baked off and set aside in a refrigerator safe container. Discard all skin and fat. Contrary to what some think, stock isn't a fat based liquid. Some fat gets into incidentally, but you should get rid of most of it as it will make your soup really greasy later.

Throw the cleaned bones in the 8 crock pot.

Throw neck, tail and giblets into the water. (although by my own advise you may want to hold off on the tail. I used it in the spirit of using everything from the chicken that I could but it is a fairly fatty part of the bird, though don't tell the chicken that.

Chop the onion into quarters leaving the skin on. (Even more delightfully easy than slicing into rings)

Throw onion into pot.

Chop garlic cloves in half leaving peel on and throw it into pot.

Set crock pot to low and leave for 24 hours. (at least that's what I did)

Use a slotted spoon or a strainer to get out all the solids out of the crock pot.

Pour remaining liquid into jars. (I used three glass peanut butter jars with cute raccoons on the lids for mine)

Refrigerate.

Lemon, Chicken, Rice Soup

ingredients:

4 cups rice (you don't need that much but it's always good to have rice on hand

6 cups of chicken stock

2 cups water

1 cup chicken meat (whatever you have left-over from earlier meal) (Family Food Cooperative)

1 large lemon

2 carrots (FFC)

4 eggs

1 tsp. salt

pepper to taste

Put rice and appropriate amount of rice in rice cooker (or cook the rice how you prefer to cook rice)

Place large pot on oven.

Pour stock and water into the pot.

Turn heat to high.

Cover.

Peel and chop carrots

Chop chicken meat into bits.

Salt & pepper chicken

When the liquid in the pot just starts to boil (don't worry if it boils I don't think it really matters that much) throw in the chicken and carrots.

Turn heat to medium, or just high enough to boil.

Let cook for about 20 minutes. (remember we're using cooked chicken here)

Break the eggs into a blender (or if you're fortunate enough, a Vita-Mix. If you don't have one get out your summer garage sail list and add it to it.)

Cut the lemon in half and squeeze the juice out.

Zest the peel of the lemon to give it even more kick (use a knife edge if you don't have a lemon zester and add one more thing to your garage sale list)

Blend the eggs on low for about 10 seconds.

Add lemon juice and lemon zest into eggs.

Blend for a second

Take 3 cups of the broth from the soup (I used the same measuring cup I used to measure the water)

Pour broth slowly into the egg and lemon mixture with blender running on low. (do NOT pour the lemon and egg mixture into your hot soup pot or you'll end up with scrambled egg goo soup)

After you have poured all the broth into the blender

Turn blender off

Pour frothy egg, lemon, stock mixture back in with the rest of the soup.

Stir it all together.

Place 1/4 cup of rice in a bowl and then ladle soup over cooked rice to serve.

Although this is one of our oldest daughter's favorite soups (as well as mine) the frothy consistency is unusual and may cause some low-brow philistines to balk. Just smile and enjoy your bowl knowing there will be more for you later.

Prep time: Not including the stock prep a surprising 1/2 hour or less.

Dishes dirtied: Soup pot, ulu knife, cutting board, lemon zester, vegetable peeler, 4 cup liquid measuring cup, ladle, Vita-mixer, lemon juicer.

The Prep: Chicken and Cabbage with sides

This is the meal I prepared on Saturday, December 10th, 2011. What I should say is that we had this for dinner or supper or whatever you want to call the meal at the end of the day (besides the after-kids-go-to-bed-epicurean-feast). For breakfast I made the andoullie sausage I got on Wednesday with scrambled eggs with onions, garlic and tomatoes. A very stick-to-your-ribs meal that felt like a brick in my gut two hours later when I was running. But yummy going down.

Anyway, on to the main event:

Chicken and Cabbage (adapted from a recipe in Clay Cookery by the Editors of ConsumerGuide)

ingredints:

1 3 1/2 lb. chicken (from Family Food Cooperative)

2 tsp. salt

pepper

1 large sweet onion (FFC)

4 cloves garlic (FFC) double recommended in cook book

1 Tbsp. Brown Mustard

1/4 cup Apple Cider Vinegar (desperate substitution for white wine)

1 medium cabbage (FFC) I actually used a large one but didn't use it all.

1 tsp salt (yes more)

pepper (ditto)

Soak clay cooker bottom and lid in cold water for at least 5 minutes.

Cut off the neck and tail of chicken and set aside for stock to make later.

Pull out giblets (nothing makes me feel more connected to my true food source than pulling out it's organs) Set these aside for stock too.

Take cooker out of cold water bath.

Place chicken in cooker.

Rub salt over chicken.

Pepper chicken.

Slice onion into thin slices and separate them into rings. (This is delightfully easy)

Slice garlic cloves and thin as your dexterity will allow.

Put onions and garlic on and around chicken.

Mix vinegar and mustard together.

Pour mustard mix over bird.

Put clay cooker into cold oven (unless you want a broken clay cooker and a doozy of a mess to clean up).

Cook on 475 degrees for 1 hour.

Cut cabbage into 1/4 (or 1/8 or whatever will allow you to fit it into the cooker but you don't want to cut them too small or they'll over cook.)

After the hour is over take chicken out and set it on inverted lid of cooker.

Place wedges on bottom and side of cooker.

Salt and pepper wedges

Replace chicken back in cooker over the cabbage wedges.

Return to oven and cook for 20 more minutes.

I recommend eating the cabbage with malt vinegar. The chicken in this dish is good, the cabbage is the best I've ever eaten. And, my kids will eat it and ask for more.

I served this with a side of buttercup squash since I already had the oven on.

Here's that recipe

Whipped Buttercup Squash

ingredients;

2 buttercup squash (FFC) note: these are NOT butternut squash. These are a "turban squash" (so called because they look like a turban, go figure).I've had them for a month because they intimidated me with their peculiar shape and rather large size. But after this meal I'm intimidated no longer and can say I'm quite the fan.

2 tbsp. butter

Slice squash in half vertically (or on it's axis as I like to think of it being a geographer)

Scoop out the seeds and slimy sinewy inside with a spoon.

Place squash meat down (or skin up) on a cookie sheet.

Add 1/4 inch or so of water to pan.

Place in hot oven. (Mine was 475 already because of the above chicken recipe)

Cook for about 45 minutes.

Carefully take pan out of the oven being especially careful that no little tykes or pets are around as it is very easy to spill steaming hot water out of the cookie sheet.

Pour water off cookie sheet.

Carefully turn squash over and let cool until your mitts can handle the heat.

While the squash is still warm, scoop the meat out of the skin into a glass cooking dish (corning ware or something similar).

Add butter. Whip it with the same spoon you scooped the meat out with.

Place it in the oven until chicken is ready to serve. The squash doesn't need to cook anymore but doing this will keep it nice and warm until served. Turn the oven off when the other dish is finished.

Everyone at the table loved this squash and every single person asked for seconds even though I hadn't added any sugar or spices to it.

Prep time: Gosh, I don't know but I'm guessing about 2 hours. I know that's alot but I forgot to put a bottle of beer on the ingredients list. Open beer and drink it while prepping everything else. Hey, it's the freaky weekend. If you can't have a little drink while preparing such a big meal what the heck's the point? Substitute wine for beer if necessary.

Dishes dirtied: Caution: not for the squeamish. Clay cooker (prima donna type dish because you can ruin it if you use dish soap on it), large kitchen knife, liquid measuring cup, measuring spoons, cutting board, small bowl to hold salt after measuring and before rubbing on chicken, mixing bowl to mix mustard and vinegar, fork, carving fork. For squash dish: cookie sheet or similar baking pan, knife, spoon for scooping, another large metal spoon for scooping out meat and whipping the squash, glassware for warming and serving on the table.

The Order: Possibly Influenced by Cold Weather

Here's the order I put in yesterday, Dec. 9th, to be picked up on Wednesday, Dec 14th.

Nacatala: A traditional cookie by J2K that sounds great and will serve as a cultural educational moment.
German Stollen: Part of our tour of holiday breads by the Fair Bakery. Thursday mornings are happy times!
Sausage, Chorizo (Mexican), Bulk, sale: for Tostadas one supper. (Family Farm Cooperative)
Sausage, Bulk, sale: either for sausage gravy to go on rice or potatoes or breakfast.(FFC)
Stew Meat: for another helping of Belgian Beer Stew . (FFC)
Focaccia: lunch for kids (J2K)
French baguette, Organic, rosemary & lavender, 1 lb to serve with random meals. This is an amazing accomplishment by Susan of Ceres & Co.
Pure Rye Sourdough Bread Fair Bakery weekly staple in our house
Wind mill cookies Cookies Um, almost ditto.
Kombucha probiotics baby! (by Farming for Life)
Sauerkraut, Raw Red Cabbage used as a small side to aid digestion and it's no hardship since I love sauerkraut. Also by Farming for Life
Honeycrisp Apples Our family has eaten 1.5 bushels of Pink Lady Apples in the last 3 weeks. We're lagging so I bought a smaller amount of a different kind to shake things up. These are by Molter Farm
Kale, Winterbor (Green Curly) I think this is by Rise Up Farms who rock vegetables! I'll probably chop it up and add it to several dishes to get some leafy green goodness into my kiddos, not to mention me.
Rutabaga They're in season and I luvs 'em. (RUF)
Onions, sweet Ubiquitous ingredient (FFC)
Potato Bread, Organic I've been in the mood for peanut butter & jelly sandwiches and although I love the sourdough rye it's not exactly the best PB&J medium (Fair Bakery) I know my meal planning isn't too inspired but it has a lot of flexibility which is important as we go into the Holidays and all sorts of things can come up.

The Prep: Day after Pick-up is Sponsored by Purple Porch

In our house Thursdays are Purple Porch Days. What's the use of getting a bunch of fresh stuff if you don't eat it the next day? (said the grasshopper to the ant) So, for breakfast we ate the Russian Krendl bread we bought from Fair Bakery. I'm very fat and happy to report: it was delicious. I could have done a better job serving it (it was not warm for everyone that partook, but we eat breakfast over a 2 hour period depending on who gets on what bus when) but the bread itself was scrumptious. Pretty enough to take to a Christmas Party.

For lunch, besides other things, the kids took there normal Thursday fair of J2K's pizza bread. I'm telling you, if you order some of their foccacia, you'll be hooked too. It's good enough that I've contemplated ordering 2 of them so the kids can take one in their lunches and I could eat the other all by myself. But that would be gluttony. Heavenly, delicious gluttony. And for dinner:

Pork Roast

Ingredients:

3lb. pork shoulder roast (Family Farms Cooperative 4 cloves garlic (FFC)

9 small to medium potatoes (FFC) sprig of Rosemary

6 (oh heck just peel the rest of the bag) carrots (FFC) 1/2 c. Perry Pear Cider

2 medium to large onions (Rise Up Farm) Pepper to taste 2tsp. coconut oil

Set crock pot on High (unless you have 6 to 8 hours before dinner then Low)

Heat coconut oil over high heat in a skillet.

Put roast in skillet. Turn the roast using tongs to sear every side of the roast. (This is suppose to help keep the juices in the meat and make it moister, and more delicious, I really only do it to be pretentious and because I like the taste of the browned edges. Oh did I mention while searing you should cook each edge until brown?)

Put roast fat side up in the crock pot (that you washed from cooking the Root Soup in on Tuesday)

Peel and quarter the potatoes (I like everything in a soup to be able to rest easily on a spoon and anyone eating the soup to do so without stretching their mouth open wide, cutting ingredients or picking out bones. I especially HATE picking out bones of something served to me in a bowl 'ready to eat'. But this is a roast so the taters will be taken out of the pot and diners will be expected to use a knife and fork, thus the larger pieces)

Peel and cut the carrots into finger size spears. (or whatever you call it when something is long and narrow. I know pickles and asparagus comes in spears but I'm not sure about carrots but you get the picture)

Put the potatoes and carrots in the pot surrounding the roast.

Ask your wonderful wife to interrupt her work that she gets payed for to go outside into the herb garden that you planted for her for Mother's Day (what a shameless self-promoter I am) and use her eyes that are better than yours (note this may not be the case in your household) and rustle through the leaves that have fallen and find some Rosemary.

Strip the Rosemary leaves off the stem so you don't hear anyone complaining about twigs in their food.

Put rosemary on the roast. (rosemary and pork go together like, like. Mork & Mindy? I don't know what they go together like except they are good together.)

Chop the onions really small so that when the roast is done those little buggers are obliterated and can only be ascertained in the taste of all the great food you're going to serve.

Give the garlic the same treatment.

Put onions and garlic on top of the roast.

Pour Pear Cider (that comes from Lehman's but isn't available for sale at PPC)

Pepper the whole kit-n-kaboodle.

Walk away and write your blog. Or, better yet tend to your children or something.

Optional Dill sauce I'm making to go on potatioes. (caution: not for people afraid of real fat)

Ingredients for sauce:

2 Tbs. of butter

2Tbs. of flour (we'll use non-wheat of course but all purpose will do)

some dill I don't know maybe a 1/4 c. when chopped

1 c. milk, buttermilk, or cream

Melt butter in the skillet you used earlier. Whisking continually with a rue whisk.

Add flour. Keep whisking for goodness sake or you'll burn it!

When the flour is browned empty the liquid ingredients from the crock that you cooked the roast in into the skillet and KEEP whisking!

Throw in the dill.

Keep whisking.

After the mixture reduces, throw in the cup of dairy. This is going to be incredibly rich so use sparingly. You've been warned.

I'm not putting this over my pork roast but on the potatoes. You do what you want with it. And most of all...Enjoy!

Prep time: 45 minutes to an hour. Especially if you make the sauce at the end.

Feeds: 6 for dinner plus hopefully some left-overs for lunch.

Dishes Dirtied: Crock pot, frying pan, tongs, knife, cutting board, chopper, liquid measuring

cup, large bowl, small bowl, rue whisk, carving knife, carving fork, platter, gravy boat.

The Pick Up: Awaiting the Goodies

This was for December, 7th 2012. Refer to Mondays post to see what I ordered to be picked up today. The event from my perspective was "I want to go to Purple Porch too to talks to my peeps." "{the boy} has homework to work on." "OK, I'll stay home. W. Make sure you check the list." So, I stayed home and distracted the boy from his research project by looking up tangential things I was curious about rather than what was on his pesky homework sheet to be answered.

When I don't go our oldest daughter does the rounds and picks up the goodies while Tama schmoozes. W. takes great pride in picking out such things as our onions and does a better job than her mom at checking to make sure we get everything we ordered.

When they got home, I was waiting in eager anticipation to see the goodies I ordered. Everything came in that I had ordered. Yay! The only weird thing was the andoullie sausage (which is cajun style and is da' bomb) was in links rather than bulk as I had ordered. It's all good since Chris & Michelle charged us the bulk rate since it was the processors fault and I can still cook it up. Just means it's more likely to be for brekky than as an ingredient during the course of the week. Fine. Tama also bought some additional cookies and some bread. Unfortunately, I don't know where the bread is from except that it's not the Fair's, Ceres & Co., or J2K (which I do purchase bread from all three on a regular basis). It comes in aluminum foil and looks as though it was made in a bread machine.

So, although I didn't get the benefit of seeing all the nice people at the Porch, or catch up on farmer chic for Fall this year (which I wouldn't have noticed even if I had gone) the pick up was a success.

The Prep: Root Soup

It should be noted for all the people I'm imagining following along on my blog (I have to imagine them because I don't think any actual people are following) that this recipe does not draw from the list I posted yesterday (Monday, Dec. 5th, 2012). That's because that list will not be picked up until tomorrow (Wednesday, Dec. 7th, 2012). However, I'm posting it because most of the ingredients were purchased at the PPC. See how this blog helps clarify the use of PPC? Well keep following along and it will become clearer.

ROOT SOUP (a potato soup varient)

Ingredients 4 cloves garlic (FFC)

8 cups water 1 lb rutabaga (Rise Up Farms)

4 cups turkey stock 1 T. salt

14 rainbow carrots (Family Farm Cooperative) Pepper

14 medium sized potatoes (FFC)

1 large onion

I called this Root Soup[ because I realized that like the potatoes, everything I was putting in the pot was something that grew in the ground. Well, all the vegetables at least.

Bring 8 cups of water to a boil in the electric kettle (because I believe it's the most efficient way to boil that much water). Pour into 6 quart crock pot.

Put slow cooker on high. (note: slow cooker and crock pot are used interchangeably for this recipe)

Take turkey stock that lovely wife made from Thanksgiving turkey and then froze in a cool water bath to defrost.

Peel and dice into bite sized cubes, potatoes.

Peel and chop carrots into chips.

Throw all of them into the pot.

Drain cool water bath and make it a warm water bath (for the stock not for you although a warm bath might be a pleasant thing to do on these late fall days).

Dump the rutabaga that you peeled, diced and cooked a boat load of last week and didn't use all of into the pot. (note: if you didn't peel, dice and cook the rutabaga last week do it this week although you won't need to cook it besides throwing it in the pot) Stir.

Chop the onion into chunks.

Saute onions in frying pan with coconut oil.

Drain the warm water bath and make it a hot water bath.

When sauteing the onions, press them with the back of a heavy spoon or turner (the thing many people erroneously call a spatula) so they break apart into their individual layers.

Open the quart jar the turkey stock was in and dump it in with the onions. Bring the whole thing to a boil for 5 minutes to make sure you kill all the bacteria formed in the making and defrosting of the stock.

Stir stock continuously so it doesn't stick.

Add salt to frying pan.

Pour contents of trying pan into crock pot.

Peel and slice garlic and throw it in the pot.

Pepper to taste.

Normally I would brown a rue to help thicken the soup but I'm out of non-wheat flour at the moment so we will collectively suffer.

Prep time: 30 minutes (and I'm no Speedy Gonzalez in the kitchen).

Serves: A small army. Or, 6 for dinner (I was counting 7 but forgot my sister-in-law will not be joining us for dinner which is why there were 14 carrots and 14 potatoes) Will probably feed all 5 of us for lunch tomorrow as well.

Dishes Dirtied: Crock pot (easy to clean)., Frying pan (pain in the rump to clean), Turner (or spatula if you will), knife, cutting board, vegetable peeler, large bowl for putting potatoes and carrots in. Measuring spoon.

The Order: Preparing for winter, running and the week.

So here's what I ordered on Friday, November 2nd, 2012 and the why for each item. Russian Krendl: Have you tasted the Fair's bread? This is a seasonal treat that'll probably be breakfast on Thursday.
Focaccia: This stuff is addictive so beware. Lunch for the kids and mid-morning snack for me on Thursday.
Pure Rye Sourdough Bread: Started specifically for wheat allergy wife by Babs and Marty. Staple that goes great w/ eggs.
Wind mill cookies: Um, cookies. 'nuf said.
Kombucha : Probiotic goodness in a jar. Left on little fridge by the back door. Taken a swig at a time on exiting and entering abode.
Kombucha, Ginger :Ditto w/ zing.
Pink Lady apples :half a bushel of a snack that the kids each eat 2 to 3 times a day. More on weekends.	h
Sausage, Andouille (Cajun) Bulk . :Possible ingredient for beans and rice dish or more likely breakfast for Tama or for me after a run.
Pork Shoulder Roast, Smoked, Boneless : Star of Thursday's dinner prepared in slow cooker.
Cabbage, Green Paired with a chicken from the freezer purchased earlier from Family Farm Cooperative to be prepare in a clay cooker to make the best cabbage ever tasted by a human tongue. What, no clay cooker? Hit the yard sales next summer and pick yourself up one. These things must have been a trend that were given as gifts to people that don't want to spend 2 hours preparing a meal but never found out how damn good the results are. I have to admit, I would have been one of those people if my less risk averse wife hadn't made some delicious dishes in it first.
Turnips : Um, I made a boat load of rutabagas last week (that were delish even if they took way longer to peel and dice than I planned) and wanted variety. Will be a side probably on Saturday.
Carrots : One of the three staples of French cuisine (along with onions and celery). I'm not French though and don't make cuisine but I do put diced carrots in almost as many dishes as i put onions in.
Garlic, large bulb :see carrots except insert Italian for French. I'm not Italian either but I do loves me some garlic.
Onions, Candy :Ubiquitous ingredient in every savory dish I make.
Onions, sweet :Variety in my ubiquitous ingredients. Must admit that I supplement our ravenous appetite for onions with onions from a certain local supermarket that uses Halloween font for some crazy reason for their logo. As I'm writing this I'm realizing that this only accounts for two dinners. Damn! No, I've got it covered. Chicken carcass mentioned with cabbage will be used to make stock for Greek Lemon Rice Chicken Soup (that's a crazy long name for a dish) on Saturday or Monday. If we end up eating the soup on Monday then I'll make potato soup and arroz y frojoles for Monday and Tuesday. Which day gets which dish depends on how I feel on each of those days.

1. Order 2. Pick Up 3.Prepare into Super Fantastico Food for the Fam

This Blog is meant to be a journal of my personal Purple Porch usage. Although I am one of the proud founders of the Purple Porch Co-op, the one that came up with it's iconic title, and helped in the initial planning stages, my involvement in the co-op since the beginning has been almost exclusively as a customer. I should disclose that I am also the husband of the current president, Tama Crisovan and neighbor and friend of manager, Greg Koehler. However, like many people my time to interact with the two of them given our diverse lives is limited. And, I think they now realize that my involvement with Purple Porch as a facilitator waned because my interest in the daily running waned as well so they know, for the most part, I don't want to talk about PPC when we do have time to hang together.

However, as the person in our household that prepares 80% of the dinners, 90% of breakfasts, and my own lunches, I do appreciate having PPC as a food source in our community. It is from this pragmatic perspective that I'll be posting in this blog.

On a weekly basis I'll share the implementation of the three steps of using the PPC: Ordering on-line, picking up on Wednesday, and finally using the purchases during the week.

I'll post a list of what I buy each week and write a post explaining what I was planning on making when I ordered each item.

On the pick up day I'll write all the juicy gossip I pick up when I go to Lang Lab to pick up my goodies. No, just kidding. I'll simply write about the elegant style of the beautiful people that shop at the Porch. No, that's not it either. I'll just write about add-ons we pick up or omissions from my initial list. I have to admit that three times out of four I don't go to the pick up because I stay home to stay with a kid working on homework, to get more work done, or to park my keester in a chair while Tama goes and chats with everyone.

Then in the prep step (that would be step 3) I'll share what I actually make including a recipe. I don't pretend to be a chef, but I do make food that my kids eat and ease of preparation and clean-up are important to me.

So, there's the intro to the site. I hope it proves to be somewhat useful to you and a whole-lot entertaining.