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21 Mar SPRING 2012: Spring Cleaning and Arroz con Pollo!

After not much of a winter, spring is upon us. The blossoms on the plum tree outside of my house have already faded, sweet peas are in full bloom in the back yard, and finally some rain. And while romanesco and broccoli have dwindled at the farmers market, a whole new crop of goodness awaits (hello strawberries! hello asparagus!).

Although the new year is traditionally the time most of us take to examine where we’ve been and where we want to go in our lives, spring and fall are the seasonal transitions that move me to look a little deeper and to get excited about change and possibility. Below you’ll see lots of new classes and two great cleanse opportunities to help kick off or support your health goals.

Speaking of supporting your health … earlier this month, I co-presented at the 2012 Womens Entrepreneurship Retreat at Asilomar on staying healthy and nourished during stress. It was a fantastic weekend and I met some pretty inspiring women who are making the world a better place through their innovations and entrepreneurial ventures. Take-aways from our talk? Make the time regularly (once a season sounds pretty reasonable, no?) to check in with yourself, to identify your sources of stress and what areas of your life are draining to you. This is also a great time to recognize your sources of joy and nourishment. The goal: reduce the stress, increase the nourishment! Both of which are easier to do if you make the effort to really see what’s going on in your life. Spring cleaning is for your house, your body and your life!

Happy spring time to you all!

What’s New …

2012 Spring Clean 21-day cleanse will start on 4/18. This whole foods-based cleanse is completely customizable and includes 4 group teleclasses, recipes, resources, and discounts from complementary care providers (think acupuncture, personal training, chiropractors, massage… that kind of thing).

Anti Candida Cleanse, a 4-week, supported cleanse to balance candida overgrowth, starts on 5/23.

New teleclasses will start in May:

Gluten 101
Eating Stress
8 Common Cravings (and how to stop them)
Sugar v. Fat: What’s really making your pants too tight)

Also starting in May:

Monthly farmers market tours!

More info on all of the above can be found here!

What’s in Season …

Spring is bountiful!! (This list is loosely organized according to how my brain bunches things together. Don’t judge.) Get thee to the farmers market as soon as possible:

Fruit:

Apricots, apriums, plums, pluots, peaches, nectarines
Oranges, mandarins, limes, lemons, guavas, loquats, kumquats, grapefruit, pomelos
Cherries and berries!! (black, blue, boysen, straw, rasp, tay)
Rhubarb
Avocados, cherimoyas

Veggies:

Artichokes, cardoons, asparagus, cactus pads, cactus pears
Eggplant, cucumbers
Greens!! (arugula, bok choy, collards, chard, kale, dandelion, mustard, spinach, lettuce, purslane, nettles, orach)
Herbs of all kinds
Endive, chicory
Horseradish, jicama
Green beans, fava beans, fava greens, peas, pea shoots, sprouts, celery, fennel
Beets, turnips, rutabagas, kohlrabi, celeriac, radishes, carrots, parsnips, onions, green garlic, leeks, scallions, shallots
Broccoli, broccoli rabe, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, cabbage,
Potatoes
Mushrooms

In California we’re so lucky to have access to so much variety all year long. I for one have been craving beets like mad and am ready to swap my collards for dandelion greens. Can’t wait to get cooking.

What’s Cooking …

Arroz con Pollo with a spring twist.

A few weeks ago I found a flurry of recipes for arroz con pollo among the collection of food blogs I read. I quickly created my own recipe “mash up” between several favorites. The key changes for me: more veggies and use the whole chicken. Sadly, this was gobbled up before I could snap a photo.

Arroz Con Pollo de Primavera

Part 1

1 orange, juiced
1 lime, juiced
2 garlic cloves, pressed
1 t salt
1 T olive oil

Part 2

1 whole 4 – 4 1/2 lb chicken (have butcher cut it up, keep everything!)
olive oil
2 bell peppers (favorite colors), diced
1 large onion, diced
2 garlic cloves
1 C asparagus (cut stalks into bit-sized pieces
2 t cumin
1 t paprika
1/4 t saffron, crushed
1 1/2 t salt
pepper, to taste ( a couple or three turns of the grinder)
2 cans roasted diced tomatoes
1 bay leaf
3-4 cups chicken broth (make from the back and neck of the chicken above – see below
2 cups brown rice
1 C green peas
1/2-2/3 C pimento stuffed green olives, roughly chopped

1. Clean chicken, cutting off any big glops of fat, but leave skin on. Set aside neck, back and innards. Place everything else in a shallow dish, big enough that all pieces fit nicely side by side.

2. Mix all ingredients in “Part 1″ above. Pour over chicken, cover with plastic wrap and chill for an hour.

3. While chicken is soaking, place neck and back in a medium sized pot, cover with 4 C water and bring to a simmer. Simmer for an hour.

4. While all that’s going on… prep all the veggies.

5. After an hour, remove neck and back from stock and set aside for later (oh, yes, we’re using the whooooole bird).

6. Heat a splash of olive oil over high heat in a large, heavy oven-safe pan or pot (a dutch oven will do). Add as many chicken pieces as will fit and brown on both sides (~3 mins each side) – remove to a plate and repeat until all pieces are browned. Pile all the pieces on that plate.

7. Now saute all of your veggies with the garlic (except the peas, olives and tomatoes), and season with all herbs/spices except the bay leaf. After about five minutes, add the tomatoes and bay leaf.

8. Add 3 1/2 C chicken broth and bring to a boil (if your stock yielded less than 3 1/2 C, no worries just supplement with water). Then add rice and simmer covered for 20 mins. At this time, turn on the oven to 350 degrees.

9. After 20 minutes, add the pieces of chicken, cover and bake in over for 20-25 mins (rice will finish cooking in the oven – check about 15 mins in to make sure rice hasn’t already absorbed all the liquid, is still hard and burning. If rice is still far from done and most of the liquid is gone, just add a little more warm stock or water, try 1/2 C at a time).

(While the chicken is in the oven, in a small sauce pan, fry up the chicken livers – and any other innards you like – in a little olive oil. And remember those neck and back bones from the stock? Carefully remove all the bits of meat and place in a medium bowl. Chopped up cooked livers, etc. and add to bowl. Now, make your favorite chicken salad – dice up a stalk of celery, a small carrot, add a pinch of salt, a dash of curry powder, a tablespoon or two of Greek yogurt or mayo – and have it for a snack or lunch tomorrow. Whole. Chicken. Used. Up!)

10. Remove your Arroz Con Pollo de Primavera from the oven. Remove bay leaf, stir in the peas and top with chopped olives.

I serve this over a layer of braised greens, with hot sauce on the side. This is hearty and warming for March rain, but with the bright colors of spring. Leftovers are terrific. If you have any. Serves 5 to 6.

(Of course, you don’t have to use the whole bird. You can use a box of chicken or vegetable stock instead, and a couple of packages of chicken thighs. If you use white rice instead of brown, skip cooking the rice on the stove and reduce stock to 3 C.)

21 Nov Chicken Curry in a Hurry Salad…

I cannot say that ever in my life have I found chicken salad appealing. It’s the dripping with mayo bit that grosses me out. You know the salads that look more like a few pieces of chicken were thrown into a vat of mayonnaise, versus the other way around? Yep, scarred for life. Until…. A couple of months ago, I had a delightful lunch at Starbelly which included their curried chicken on some truly great crunchy, airy bread. I was starving after a hot and nasty (in the best send of the word) yoga class and my body for the first time in over a decade said: “get the curry chicken sandwich, NOW.” When my body shouts, I listen. It was divine and not at all a drench of mayonnaise. Of course, I’ve been obsessed with curry chicken salad since and finally had a chance to make it with chicken soup left overs.

(Totally necessary aside: In my humble opinion, one trick to truly tasty chicken salad is to use dark meat. I know everyone is breast crazy – all the 12-year-olds can stop laughing – but, let’s be honest, the white meat? Blah blah blandland. After so many years of not eating chicken, my first taste of white meat was not inspiring in the least; I could happily never eat it again. Dark meat, on the other hand, now that’s some good yum. So, do yourself a flavor favor and at least use half and half.)

This recipe literally takes five minutes to make. You can absolutely go nutso with more spices, but I was in a hurry, so I stuck with the basics. In fact, one batch (see picture above) was even sans the turmeric and it was still completely satisfying, just not as brightly colored. As I think about it now, a little crushed ginger would be a nice addition also. Final note: personally, I think you can add whatever raw vegetables you like – cucumbers, finely chopped radicchio, onion, shallots, chopped parsley, etc.

So, basically what’s printed below is a good starting place.

Chicken Curry Salad

1 heaping C chopped or shredded cooked chicken
1 celery rib, diced
1 small carrot, diced
1 radish, diced
1-2 t curry powder, to taste
pinch or three turmeric
2 T greet yogurt, Vegenaise, or mayonnaise (more if you want it more drippy)
generous pinch sea salt

How to do it:

1. Mix spices and yogurt (or Vegenaise) in a medium bowl, until well-combined. Add everything else (I like to do one or two ingredients at a time) and stir until chicken and veggies are lightly coated with curry dressing.

2. Done.

16 Nov Get Over Your Cold Chicken Soup

My whole life, the answer to illness has always been chicken soup. It started with my grandma Gogo (no, that really was her name, not a grandma nickname) and has been kept alive by my mom. Even at the height of my vegetarian years when I was felled by the flu to end all flues, my mama tucked me into the family room couch, lit a fire and made me chicken soup, which I slurped up gladly.

What’s so great about homemade chicken soup when you’re recovering from or fighting off a cold? Try this on for size: hydration (liquid broth), protein for recovery (in the broth and the meat), minerals (from the simmered bones), vitamins (from the veggies), steam (good for your sinuses) and comfort (good for your soul).

Sounds pretty good, right? But you think picking up a couple cans of soup is easier? Maybe … except for all the sodium, and not knowing the quality of the ingredients, and not having the convenience of a big vat in your refrigerator to eat for days … oh, and all of the left over meat to use in other meals. I almost forgot: have I mentioned how easy it is to make? You can spend some serious time resting on the couch between the steps.

Of course, you don’t have to be sick to enjoy this. Homemade chicken soup is the perfect light but cozy meal to satisfy your belly and fortify your immune system. Either way, here’s to a healthy fall.

Super Basic Get Over Your Cold Chicken Soup

1 chicken (a small fryer will do)
1 large carrot, chopped into bite-sized pieces
1 large celery stalk, ditto
½ large onion, diced
sea salt and pepper to taste
Optional: handful chopped kale, chard or collards stems, and/or large handful of a tender green (e.g. baby spinach or tatsoi) roughly chopped
Optional: ½ C brown rice
Water, as much as you need

What to do:

Rinse your chicken and pull out the innards (these should be neatly packaged in paper inside the core of the bird – just pull out and set aside – don’t throw away!).
Place rinsed chicken in a large (you can add the neck too – also should be tucked inside the core), deep pot and fill with water until the chicken is juuuuust about covered (a little less than completely covered is fine if your pot isn’t that deep).
Bring water to a simmer, but do not boil. If you can’t cover chicken with water, use tongs or whatever is handy to gently roll chicken over to other side (so the more exposed side is now on the bottom of the pot and fully submerged). Simmer until meat easily falls off bone – test by picking up a leg and giving it a gentle tug. If it separates fairly easily from the rest of the body, you’re good to go; if it’s as strongly attached as when you plopped chicky in the water, give it more time.
As chicken simmers, you may notice a foam build up around the edges of the pot. Use a slotted spoon to scoop up this foam and throw away. You may want to do this a couple of times.
Carefully remove chicken from the water and place on a large plate or platter to cool off until you can touch it without burning your fingers.
At this point, the chicken broth will be pretty bland tasting. To concentrate the flavor, while chicken is cooling, add onions, carrots, celery and other veggies, except leafy vegetables (add when done reducing broth) to the broth, bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Add salt and pepper to taste and simmer until broth has reached desired concentration of flavor. Probably at least 20 mins.
When chicken is cool enough to handle grab a largish bowl and two smallish bowls, and begin stripping meat, skin and fat off the carcass – meat pieces go in large bowl, skin and fat go into one of the small bowls (or a plastic bag, if you don’t compost). Once chicken is completely stripped of flesh (this can take a while if you want to be meticulous), tear ~ 1/3 of the meat into large one or two-bite sized pieces and put into other small bowl – this will go back into the soup in a bit. Toss your compost and store the other meat for later (chicken pot pie? curry chicken salad? lots of options for the leftovers).
You have two options regarding the rice. Either cook in a rice cooker while the chicken is simmering, then add once the broth has been reduced, or cook directly in the chicken soup – just remember that this will take ~30 minutes, use up a cup of the soup and make the rice super soft and potentially a little mushy, which isn’t a bad thing if you’re sick. If you’re choosing the latter, add to broth with the veggies in step 5.
When broth is happily reduced, add chicken meat, cooked rice (if you cooked separately) and any tender green leafy veggies you’re using. Taste and adjust salt and pepper for seasoning.

Notable: when chicken fat in the soup gets cold, it will solidify. You may notice a thin layer – almost like a crust – form on the top of the refrigerated leftovers. It’s fine to scoop it off, or you can just let it melt back into the broth as you reheat the soup. But really, don’t fear the fat. If you have a good quality chicken, it won’t be that fatty and natural fat is important for several reasons, not the least of which is that it helps trigger the hormones that tell your brain you’ve had enough to eat.

*Umm, yes, this bowl of soup looks extra shiny, but it’s not because of the soup, it’s because of the camera and an unfortunate mistake I made taking the picture, which I didn’t realize until after I ate the bowl of soup. Some weird lighting effects to fix the photo later… and here it looks weirdly glossy. BUT, you can still see all the yummy goodness inside, so… photos were kept.