Woman vs. Chicken

I hate making roast chicken. It just really grosses me out. But I started making my own chicken stock about a year ago and once you have made and used your own chicken stock you can never go back to using bouillon cubes.

So about every three month, I buckle down and make a roast chicken, use the meat for tasty risottos and stews and curries and use the carcass to make stock which I then freeze in one cup portions.

Sure, there are other ways to make chicken stock, some people say better ways. There is Ina Gartens famous chicken stock recipe which is supposed to be fantastic. Or The Amateur Gourmets chicken stock recipe. But wasting that much chicken and not even getting to eat it, I morally just cannot get myself to do.

On top of that I found a new recipe - Jamie Olivers "Chicken in milk" which I have been wanting to make since I first laid eyes on it and since we also just got ourselves a brand new Lodge Dutch Oven (the poor man's Le Creuset) that I had been dying to try - I knew it was time to face the chicken.

Since starting to follow Michael Pollans food principles I found that when it comes to meat - it is relatively easy to find grass fed beef in most grocery stores (I guess it has become somewhat of a foodie staple) but it is nearly impossible to get pastured chicken in Chicago, in the winter. In the summer, a lot of local farmers can be found at the farmers markets but there are only one or two weekly farmers markets which brave the winter. Through the Eat Wild website I found out that there is Farmers Market which sells pastured chicken but that's not happening for another 10 days.

So I made my way down to Chicagos biggest Wholefoods which apparently is the 3rd biggest Wholefoods in the world. There were three different kinds of whole chicken: Amish, "natural" (Wholefoods own brand) and Kosher. I checked all the labels and none of them said "pastured". A Wholefoods employee asked me if I needed help, so I asked him if Wholefoods sold any pastured chicken. His answer:

"Erm, we have the Amish, which are Amish raised and the natural and then we have the Kosher. And erm, yeah, all our chickens are, you know, organic and all pastured and all that stuff."

Clearly he didn't understand what pastured meant because I am pretty sure that if the chicken were pastured it would say so. A lot of people who buy their food at Wholefoods would spend extra to get a pastured chicken, I am sure.

His response reminded me of the response I got from a Trader Joes employee after asking him if any of the beef they were selling was grass-fed. He had to go ask. When he came back he said:

"Yeah, all of our beef is organic which means it is grass-fed." - Again - if the cows were grass-fed, I am pretty sure it would say. In fact, I had seen beef at a bigger Trader Joes that said in big letters "Grass-fed only beef".

Anyway, I ended up grabbing one of the Amish chicken, hoping that this would be the best choice of the three.

When I got home and I checked the recipe, I noticed that it asked for a 3 1/2 pound, organic chicken. I noticed that the chicken I had bought was 4 1/2 pounds. According to Michael Pollan pastured chicken are usually smaller, since they are outside and have to find bugs and grass to eat.

Had I, after all my extensive research, chosen an obese chicken?

After doing some research now, I found out that Amish chicken are

NOT free-range, they are antibiotic free though, at least.

The thing I hate most about preparing a whole chicken is sticking my hand up its behind to get out the insides. In most cases the insides are in a bag but I have had cases where they were just thrown in there loosely.

In the case of this Amish chicken - this is what was inside:

I am not sure if it is visible from the picture but this bag is chicken-head shaped. Now, a headless chicken is disturbing enough for me to look at but the head? I know - it's most likely just the neck which people like to throw in the pot when they are making chicken stock but let's just say I was not brave enough to open the bag. It is in my freezer right now. I don't think I could have eaten the chicken if I would have seen its face.

The headless chicken itself looked like a headless baby. For me - roasting chickens always kind of look like headless babies but this chubby chicken even more so:

I actually ended up apologizing to the chicken and thanking it for giving us its meat. I realize that probably sound somewhat nuts but I mean - look at it:

And this ladies and gentlemen is why I eat mostly vegetarian these days.

(The "Chicken in Milk" was very tasty though and I can highly recommend it - especially if you like lemon - but make sure to read the comments under the recipe, since they give some good tips)

Life changing

I'll be honest. I sometimes wonder if I wasted a year of my life in 2009. Part of me believes I needed it to recover, to get strength and so on but then, I really didn't get anywhere last year. I spent a year mourning losses - the loss of my friends in the Netherlands, the loss of my career (even though I didn't like my career but at least it was something to be proud of), the loss of my independence (since I am not making enough money to be self-sufficient which is something that I am not entirely comfortable with, despite fully trusting my husband), the loss of my social life, ...

I don't know how but with the end of 2009 I could finally stop mourning and start living my new life. I made a few "new years resolutions" but they are really much more than new years resolutions - they are what I need to do to get back on track and to get a life started that I feel is worth living.

I already talked about one of the resolutions - to respect myself. And to give you guys an update on this - it's going great and it has probably been one of the best changes I have ever made in my life.

Respecting myself means a lot more than to stop telling myself I am worthless (even though - just doing that already was a huge improvement to my life). It means respecting my body as much as respecting my mind.

Deciding to eat organically, to only eat animals and animal products like eggs and diary from animals who I know were treated with dignity and got to eat grass, like they were supposed to made a HUGE impact on my life. Seriously guys - if you have never had eggs from a farm where the pastured chickens are allowed to run around freely, eat grass and bugs instead of kernels, you are missing out!

My breakfast most days of the week:

A green smoothie

How to make it:

1 cup of almond milk (or soy or rice or hemp or regular milk but my favorite is unsweetened, vanilla almond milk)

1 banana

frozen fruit of your choice: I either make a "berry" one with frozen cherries, strawberries and blueberries or a "tropical" one with frozen mango, guava and pineapple. Sometimes I add peaches to either

one or two cups of dark green, leafy vegetables like spinach or kale

protein powder of your choice

- put everything in a blender. Blend. Ready. The taste of the greens takes a little bit of getting used to and you can leave it out if you really don't like it but it's so packed full of nutrients that for me it's really worth to add it. I found that chocolate protein powder masks the bitter taste of the greens better than vanilla.

One of the best things I read was "Cheap food might be cheap right now but it is too expensive in the long run" - meaning the effects that cheap, mass-produced food have on the planet and on your body in the long run are just not worth it.

And even though I spend a lot of money on food now, I waste a lot less. Our fridge is only half as full as it was before and I really try to use every morsel of food I buy. This involves a lot more planning but I don't mind. I also freeze a lot of food.

And completely unrelated - we booked our flights to Europe and we'll be in the Netherlands and Austria in less than 10 weeks. I can't wait! But more about that another time!

Tales of Mere Existence

I couldn't have said it better myself: