Chicken Recipe Queen

I have not posted anything to this blog for awhile, running this website is very time consuming, being a one woman show is not easy. I promise to try and post to this blog more often.

I personally love oregano and use it quite frequently I was so happy when I discovered its healing abilities. Not mentioned in the article below is oregano’s anti-inflammatory properties. It is useful in the treatment of all forms of arthritis including lupus.

Think oregano, think of rich, savory tomato sauce or the best pizza place in town. Over the course of history, oregano has actually been an herb that has confused a great many people. In most cases an herb may have two or perhaps even three variations. Oregano on the other hand has a whole genus of herbs that over the years have been called by the name oregano.

In history the culinary uses of oregano were almost unheard of. It was the medicinal uses that were used by the Greeks for aching muscles, the Romans for spider bites, and the bald men even tried rubbing it with olive oil in hopes of regrowing their hair. There is no known clinical studies or research on the effects of oregano. Oregano came to North America by way of European colonists. It was not originally a native plant, but now can be found growing wild. Upon arriving in North America it was quickly used as part of standard medicine. The tea was used to treat coughs and asthma. An oil was used by distilling the herb in water, however, as it takes nearly 200 pounds of oregano to produce a single pound of oil, it was quickly dismissed as a standard oil in medicine.

Today, oregano is probably best known for its appearance in tomato sauces. However, many modern herbal practitioners still use the remedies from the past. Infusions of the leaves are used to sooth coughs and headache's. Taking a drop of oregano oil on a toothache is a remedy that truly works. Using the pretty pink flowers to make a tea from will calm motion sickness. The nice thing about oregano in ingesting it as either a tea or an infusion is that there are no known side effects. It is one of the few herbs today that are completely safe.

The most often used remedy today however, is still the external uses for oregano (other than culinary). An herbal poultice made with oregano will soothe painful swellings. To make an oregano poultice use fresh oregano. In a blender mix the fresh herb along with a little oil or wheat germ oil. Spread the blend on a piece of cloth or gauze and place directly on the affected area. Since the oil can stain wrap the area with a plastic wrap and leave on for up to 24 hours. To be effective, the poultice needs to be made fresh for each application.

A plaster can also be made by spreading honey on a cloth in a very thin layer and crush the fresh plant sprinkling it onto the honey. The cloth can be taped directly over the affected area for up to 12 hours.

Author: Ashira

Let’s face it food and water, are the most valuable substance’s on this planet. With out it we wither and die. Without proper nutrition, our brains do not function as they should, decisions are hard to make, we are listless and without joy. How many times do you watch the clock at work waiting for lunch, waiting for that energy reviving meal?

One of the best gifts that a parent can give to a kid, is teaching them to prepare their own meals, this will carry them on through life. Children as young as four can be taught to cook. Start by letting them stir batter for pancakes, or by helping you crack eggs for breakfast. They can even help you put pre-measured seasonings in the food, with a little help from you; kids can be cooking like a pro by age ten.

The bonus in teaching them to help cook is that they will, proudly try new foods if you let them in the kitchen with you to see just what is going on their plates. You will be surprised the pickiest eater will say I help mom make this, and actually eat the food that they prepared. Letting them participate in cooking will take the fear out of trying new foods.

Both boys and girls will enjoy helping in the kitchen. Another bonus is that it will give you more time to spend with your kids. You can also use this time to discuss nutrition and a balanced diet. A good friend of mine child was always getting into messes while she was preparing the family’s meals. When she allowed him into the kitchen to help cook there was no more mischief in the living room. Here’s a kid friendly recipe to get you started.


Chicken Meatballs

1 lb ground chicken
1 egg lightly beaten
2/3 c. cornbread stuffing mix
2 tbsp sour cream

Combine chicken, egg and stuffing mix.( let kids mix and shape the meatballs ). Shape into 16 meat balls. Lightly oil skillet with cooking spray and brown meatballs. Reduce heat to low and add ¼ cup water. Cover and simmer for 15 minutes. Stir a little cooking liquid into sour cream and then stir back into skillet. Gently heat to serving temperature. Add 2to 4 more tablespoons water if necessary.

Serving Suggestions
Mashed potatoes
Mixed vegetables
Multi grain rolls


Source: four ingredient cookbook

See you next time

Mandy’s were the brilliant women whom worked in the kitchens of the big houses in New Orleans, they dreamed up the scrumptious meals that were dined upon by the gentry. Dreaming up wonderful meals such as, the dozens of different varieties of jambalaya, cheese souffle, and Creole corn pudding, jut to name a few. Their meals went from eloquent to the  simple, all of it delicious, and exciting. Mandy’s were also skilled in the usage of herbs, knowing just the right time to harvest them so that they would be at their peak of tastiness. Often borrowing  idea’s from the many cultures that flowed into New Orleans, this was so remarkable because these ladies could not read so they had to remember the ingredients or go by taste , always measuring with their eye’s how much of this or that would be needed to make it soul satisfying. We owe much of what we eat today to these cooks of yester year. They were creative because sometimes food was scarce so if they didn’t have one ingredient they substituted it for another often resulting a entirely new but fantastic dish. I though it would be fun to give you guy’s a glimpse of their savory cooking.

Stuffed Chicken  
1 lg. chicken
2 tbsp butter
2 cups bread crumbs ( or half bread ½ cracker)
1 egg Ground artichokes, onion, parsley. Green onion top, green pepper, salt, pepper, cayenne
2 c. water

Clean the hen well. It is better to have killed it the day before. Soak it 1 hour or so in warm water with a little vinegar for the sake of whitening and tenderness. Rub it with a little butter, salt and pepper and flour.

Soak the bread in water squeeze it dry and mix it with artichokes, fry it all together in the butter, till it is dry. Then in with the chopped up celery, parsley, chopped up onions etc. season it well; put in the egg well beaten, and add 1 tablespoon of butter.

Stuff the chicken with this, set it in the baking pan with 2 cups water poured about it. Baste often.

Extra dressing may cook in the pan with it.

The above is a meager outline of a dressing. No proper Creole cook could bear to have it with out oysters; chopped pecans are an invaluable addition; so are clams, chestnuts, if available are good. The ground artichokes add something to their richness.

Maybe they would have had side dishes like these;
Candied yams
Mustard greens
Cauliflower béchamel
French rolls
Cornbread

Recipe source: Mandy’s favorite Louisiana cookbook

I just got a copy of Pearl Bailey’s cookbook (Pearl’s Kitchen), this was important to me because Pearl Bailey was one of mothers favorite entertainers. I often came home from school to find her watching Ms. Bailey on the Michael Douglass show. During the 1970s she had her own television show. There was absolutely to be no talking while Ms. Bailey was on television. So needless to say, I learned to either love or hate what ever Mothers craze was back then. When other kids my age were watching after school cartoons I was busy with mama. So when I found the Pearl Bailey cookbook I was ecstatic! My mom and pearl cooked very similar but mom was the spice queen, Ms. Bailey used very little seasoning outside of salt and pepper, her secret ingredient seemed to be a lot of fat, far more fat than mother used and I now think that mom used a lot by today’s standards.

 I am slowly returning back to natural foods so my fats used during cooking are corn oil, olive oil, and butter yes real butter. I have done a little research and have found that butter is getting a bad reputation as artery clogging, while in fact it is margarine that is more harmful. Butter is a good source of iodine, which is necessary for the proper function of the thyroid gland, and selenium, another important anti-oxidant. Margarine is made primarily from vegetable oils that have been hydrogenised to make them solid. Margarine contains little or no cholesterol, but high levels of a type of unsaturated fat called Trans fat. Small amounts of Tran’s fats occur in some natural products (including butter) but in a different form than the Trans fats produced by the process of hydrogenation. It is a personal choice of mine; I’m now hooked on the wonderful flavor of butter. And by the way I don’t have high cholesterol which many of my margarine using friends have. I find myself using less butter, than I did margarine so bonus, less calories. Now back to Ms. Bailey, I thought it would be fun to post one of Ms. Bailey’s recipes and then redo it my mother’s way. Here it comes 

1 kosher chicken
Salt and pepper to taste
As many onions as you like
Maybe a few vegetables

Fill a pot half full with water, add the salt pepper and the onions. Cover the pan and let it come to a full boil, and then turn it down to a simmer, until the broth becomes concentrated. If using vegetables add them. Serve!


Now this is my mother’s soup.

1 large chicken
1-2 onions
2-3 ribs of celery
2 carrots
1 tsp sage
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp black pepper
Salt to taste
8 ounces pasta (mom used egg noodles a lot) Place the chicken in a large pot and cover about 1 inch over the chicken. Add the onions, celery, carrots, and seasonings. Cook the chicken until it is falling off of the bones. Remove from the pot let cool a bit and then pull the chicken from its bones. Return the chicken to the pot and let it come to a full boil again, add the pasta. Cook it until the pasta is done to your taste. I myself do not like al dente pasta I prefer it to be on the softer side.

Serving Suggestions
Green salad
Crusty bread

Remember to eat chicken tonight!

What's the Difference?

I grew up on foods that would now be considered unhealthy, cheese laden casseroles, fried chicken, fried fish, fried potatoes and onions, real butter, not reduced fat tasteless margarine, everything that is bad for you by today’s standards. And yet none of us were over weight, or had high cholesterol, in fact most people did not complain of high blood pressure, diabetes, and cancer cases were few and far between. In my humble opinion we should return back to the basics. World renowned herbalist Jethro Kloss states in his blockbuster book  Back to Eden  “ as a result of man’s trying to improve on nature, the human race is deteriorating, especially in America where people are accustomed to so-called luxuries. Although food may be ample in quantity, modern methods of refining remove many of the important elements. In many cases, the food is adulterated and preservatives are added to conceal their inferior quality and extend their shelf life.”

Mom cooked with fresh butter and farm fresh eggs. Chicken was not loaded with antibiotics, and growth hormones. Chickens were not packed into little cages and they walked their yards freely pecking and eating what was natural to them. And when you cooked them they had a clean fresh taste and an aroma that begged you to eat them. Now days a few poultry farms have gone back to the basics. Which is good but we need this done on a wider scale, no more pesticides or growth hormones laden food.

The nation’s health should come first, these unhealthy practices will be shoved our way until we the people demand healthier and environmentally safe foods.

This weeks Recipe is:
San Francisco chicken Wings

Due to the health benefits of the star anise seed pod and the swine flu pandemic, supplies of star anise are shrinking. There are other sources of shikimic acid available. For example, fermenting specific E. coli bacteria will create shikimic acid. Fruit from the sweetgum (liquidambar) tree also provides shikimic acid, but the compound is more concentrated in star anise. Fennel and ginger contain shikimic acid. However, they are not commercially used sources of the compound.


¾ c soy sauce
1 tbsp light brown sugar
1 tbsp rice vinegar
2 tbsp dry sherry
Juice of 1 orange
2 inch strip of orange peel
1 star anise
1 tsp cornstarch
¼ cup chicken broth
1 tbsp minced fresh ginger
1 tbsp Asian chili garlic sauce, to taste
3-31/2 lbs chicken wings, about 22-24, tips removed (save tips for making stock)


Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. In a saucepan, combine the soy sauce, brown sugar, rice vinegar, dry sherry, orange juice, and rind and star anise. Bring to a boil over medium heat. Combine the cornstarch and chicken broth in a small bowl and stir until blended. Add to the boiling soy sauce mixture, stirring well. Boil for another minute. Stirring constantly. Remove the soy sauce mixture from the heat and stir in the minced ginger and sauce to taste. Arrange the chicken in one layer in a large baking dish. Pour the sauce over them and stir to coat the wings. Bake until tender and browned,30-40 minutes, basting occasionally.
4 servings


Serving Suggestions
Stir fried vegetables
Sticky rice

Remember to eat chicken tonight.

My brother Bill and I always anxiously waited for Friday night to come for three good reasons .We got our allowances, mom usually made fried chicken or fried fish and  there  was no school on Saturday so we could stay up as late as we wanted to. A portion of our allowance was spent getting our special treats for our Friday night scare fest. We always hoped for fried chicken, and it was corn season we would be in seventh heaven because that meant juicy ears of sweet corn so drenched in butter that  when you bit into them  a trail of butter would drip down your chin.  Mom made the most crispy and delicious fried chicken in this world. The whole neighborhood would smell of fried chicken. Folks would say "Barbara’s frying chicken" and we would smile proudly. My mom was the best cook in the world and even though I’m a accomplished cook, my food is not like hers. But is very close. I have always enjoyed cooking and sewing. It's something about the creation of things that other people enjoy that rocks my world. There is nothing more satisfying to me then seeing my food rapidly disappear from the table. Well now I’m way off track. I wanted to tell you guys about Friday fright night. After school, Bill would be waiting for me to round the corner so that we could get home and collect our allowances and walk to the corner store to get our special treats. We always ended up with a bag of penny candy and chocolate moon pies and two pickles - one hot dill and one dill. I have always liked my food spicy. We would rush through our chores, eat dinner and wait for the 10 o’clock news to go off so Gregory Graves could terrify us for a couple of hours. He was much more frightening than the Mummy, the Wolf man and yes ever scarier than Boris Karloff''s Dracula. Mind you, we were watching this on black and white TV. Gregory Graves had this pasty white face and horrible dark circles painted around his eyes. That coupled with hair that stood up on its ends scared the stuffing out of me. Oh and did I forget to mention his raspy voice I can still hear it just writing this. We munched popcorn and drank orange Vess pop and were very content wrapped in our covers, protected from any monster that crossed the screen. Then it was time to go to bed. The rule was the last one downstairs had to turn all of the lights out. My brother Bill was faster than I so he beat me most of the time and I would have to work up the courage to turn off the lights and run hurriedly up to my bed and the safety of my covers. But as time went by I got smarter and devised a plan that just before the move was to end I had to go to the bathroom and there I would stay, until I heard that raspy voice saying good night. Saturday was business as usual- my helping mom and going out to play hopscotch. More of my ramblings to come next week!

Don’t forget to eat your Friday night’s fried chicken. This Friday I’m giving you a nice recipe to start you off. 

Low-Fat Southern Fried Chicken

 

    10 boneless/skinless chicken thighs

    2 cups low fat buttermilk

    1 teaspoon cayenne pepper

    2 tablespoons kosher salt

    4 tsp black pepper

    4 cups all-purpose flour, for dredging

    canola or peanut oil, for frying

Directions
In a mixing bowl combine the chicken, buttermilk, paprika, cayenne, and half the salt and black pepper. Mix well and refrigerate for 2 hours to marinate.
Add the flour, and remaining salt and black pepper, to a baking dish. Using tongs, remove the chicken, 2-3 pieces at a time and coat well in the seasoned flour. Be sure to press the flour into the meat cover completely. Shake off excess and reserve on a baking sheet. When all the chicken is dredged in the flour, add about an inch of oil to a heavy frying pan. Over medium-high flame, heat the oil to 375 degrees F. Test by dropping a small piece of coating from the chicken into the oil. The coating will bubble and begin to fry. Add the chicken and cook for 7-8 minutes per side, until the outside is browned and the meat is cooked through. Serve immediately, or hold in a warm oven if doing in batches.
5 servings

 

Serving Suggestions

Mashed potatoes with country gravy
Buttered corn on the cob
Broccoli sautéed with onions and mushrooms
Hot rolls

I grew up in the 60’s and life was so different then. It seemed to a much kinder time. Most Moms stayed home with their kids while Dad worked. We children frolicked in the street playing games like tag, hide and go seek, hopscotch, and jumping rope. The whole family watched television in the den, watching the same shows together as a family unit. There were not repeats of the same shows for days on end. If you missed a show you had to wait till just before the new season and they reran a few of the choice episodes. Every once in a while mom would bring the TV trays out and we all ate in front of the television. My point is that the entire family was a unit,not divided like it is today. We eat rushed meals, in separate rooms on disposable plates so that we can rush on to our own separate cares. 

My dad Marvin always opened each meal with a prayer of gratitude, remembering that in his youth times were hard, having grown up during the depression. We were cautioned to clean our plates because kids elsewhere were starving. Sometimes my brother Bill and I would ask for more than we could eat and Mother would say "your eyes are bigger than your belly" and our neighbor’s dog would get some nice scraps. We had no pets as I am an asthmatic and allergic to fur. 

Nothing was wasted, not even hardened bread. Mother and I would sit on the porch steps and feed the birds and she would tell me all of God’s creatures have to eat. Sometimes we would talk and other times just sit and watch the beauty of the birds as they scampered for the crumbs. Those were some of my favorite times because I had mother’s undivided attention knowing that soon she and I would have to return to do some waiting chore. You see, I was my mother’s helper. Back then I sometimes felt like she worked me like a personal slave. The chores the she taught me made me a better person. I can cook and clean with the best of them. One of mom’s favorite sayings was "If you are not going to do it right then leave it alone" I never wanted to disappoint her because she had the most soulful brown eyes to be found on this earth, and I could not stand to see her sadness. 

Hello,

I hope you enjoy your blog and new membership site..

Thank you for ALL you do!

Shari