Links of the Month

A new feature here, I want to point out good articles from my fellow bloggers.  Theses caught my attention this month:

70% of U.S. Children Have Insufficient Vitamin D – report from Cheeseslave.

We can learn a lot from history – Lessons on Real Food from 100 Years Ago, from Food Renegade.

Kelly the Kitchen Kop has posted a really great article about gut health, a passion of mine - Gut Health 101: 6 Questions and Answers About A Strong Immune System and the GAPS Diet

Two posts from Nourished Kitchen have caught my eye - Iron Deficiency and the Breastfed Baby and Water Kefir: A Quick Tutorial.  What is water kefir?  It’s a fizzy drink that’s full of wonderful probiotics, apparently tastes milder than kombucha and is easy to make.  A great substitute for soda pop.  I need to try this soon.

And finally, a recipe – Rustic Fresh Tomato Tart – from The Nourishing Gourmet.  This looks so yummy and I love the photos!

How to Afford Healthy Food

I am contributing to the Real Food Wednesdays Blog Carnival, hosted by Cheeseslave and Kelly the Kitchen Kop.

The theme this week is Real Food on a Budget.  You can go here to see all the other great tips.

My biggest way to save money on groceries, allowing me to spend more on real healthy food, is to only buy whole chickens, never parts, and cut them up.

The instructions below were part of my Money Matters article.  You can check it out to see lots more tips for saving money.

How to Cut a Chicken

 

 

 

 

Rinse the chicken and lay on cutting board.  I like to put some paper towels down to soak up juices.  Make sure your knife is sharp.  I like to start with the breast, so I have it breast up.  It’s easiest for me to have the legs facing away from me.

 

 

 

First cut in the middle of the breast.  You will encounter the breastbone (sternum); you will need to cut along side this bone.

 

Keep cutting down along side the breastbone and the rib bones.  I pull the knife toward me in long slicing motions; I don’t use sawing motions here.

 

You will not be cutting through any bone, if you encounter a bone, just cut around it.  There is a small ligament to separate the breast meat.  Then the breast meat just pulls easily away from the skin. 

 

 

Next I turn the chicken 90° so that the legs are to my right (I’m right-handed). Do the same on this side as the last, cutting on the other side of the breast bone and down along side the ribs.

 

Next, I grab the chicken by the wing and hold the wing up.

 

 

In this picture you will see that I am cutting the wing off of the chicken.  I cut with my knife (this time in sawing motions) under the wing pit, looking for the joint.  You won’t have to cut through bone; you should find the joint and cut right between the two bones.

 

 

Now that the wing is off, I lay it on the cutting board and cut off the tip at the joint.  Again, you won’t be cutting through bone, just between joints.  I save the tips for broth.

 

 

Now I have the remainder of the wing, I will hold it in my hand and pull the knife up between the joints.

 

 

Now you have two parts of the wings, the little drumstick and the other piece.

 

 

Next I flip the chicken over, breast side down.

 

 

Grab hold of the leg and bend it backwards to pop the joint out.

 

 

Now cut the leg off at the thigh along side the body.  You won’t cut through bone, you will see the thigh joint and just cut between the joint.

 

 

Now you have the leg and thigh piece.  Sometimes there is excess skin to cut off.  I leave the leg/thigh pieces together.  If you want your drumsticks separate from the thighs you can easily cut them apart at the joint.  Most recommend looking for the line of fat that runs under the skin between the leg and thigh, but that is never a guarantee for me.  Instead, I press with my thumb to feel the indentation of the joint, and then cut at that point.

 

 

Now I am left with the carcass, I will put this in a freezer bag along with the wing tips to save for chicken broth.  I freeze the breasts in separate bags, freeze the wings together in a bag, freeze the leg/thigh pieces together in a bag. Then we can pull out the breasts for such meals that call for boneless, skinless breasts, we can have a wing meal (like hot wings or teriyaki wings) when we have a couple of bags saved up, and we roast up the leg/thigh pieces in the oven or put them on the grill.  If I do a soup I will pull out some carcasses and cook up some broth and then just cook a whole chicken for the meat of the soup.

Also, I make my own chicken broth.  It is SO much better for you than store-bought and it will save you tons of money!!  I cannot remember the last time I had to buy store-bought broth.

Marinara Sauce

Updated 1/8/09

I hope that the font size does not bother anyone.  I have formatting issues when I post recipes so I have to revert to this format and I don’t like the small font.  You can change the text size on your Internet browser temporarily to make it more readable.

As promised, here is a recipe that you can easily whip up to substitute for commercial spaghetti sauce.  I grew up in a house where everything was made from scratch, there were no packages to open, so when I got married I knew how to make marinara and did for many, many years.  Then when I had a child, I succumbed to the convenience of the jar variety, and my family got very hooked on it.  I finally cut that out last year, as I do not want to consume things that have HFCS in them.  So I came up with this recipe.  There are plenty of good marinara recipes out there; this is what my family will eat.  Please tweak it however you like to your family’s liking.  If you have questions, please let me know.

I do add some sugar to it to cut the acidity of the tomatoes.  Some say you can add some stewed apple or pear to accomplish the same, but I haven’t tried that.  I figure 2 tablespoons of sugar spread out over 1 quart of sauce isn’t going to make much of an impact.  Two tablespoons of sugar equals 24 grams of sugar.  If you have a half-cup serving then you are eating an extra 3 grams of sugar, minimal to my mind.  At this point, my family won’t eat it any other way because I let them eat the jarred variety for so long and they want that slightly sweet taste.

But I digress; let’s get back to the recipe.  You can use this sauce for spaghetti, you can add ground meat for a meat sauce, you can use it for lasagna, stuffed pasta shells, manicotti, cannelloni, I even use it to top my meatloaf and as a dip for our meatloaf instead of ketchup.  Ketchup is so full of HFCS, but meatloaf is the only meat that I have to have ketchup with, so thankfully this sauce now takes that place.  When we do meatless spaghetti, I like to add some cream to this sauce; it’s a wonderful variation.

This recipe will make a little more than a quart.  I like to keep it in a mason jar in the fridge.  I suppose you could make a large batch and freeze it, you might allow for some expansion room in the jar.

1 med. onion, diced

1 Tb. coconut oil

2 cloves garlic, pressed or finely minced

1 14 oz. can diced tomatoes (I like the petite cut)

1 28 oz. can tomato sauce puree (I now use puree because it doesn’t list any other ingredients. The sauce lists some objectionable things.)

2 Tb. sugar

1 Tb. dried basil

1 Tb. dried Italian herb blend (I’ve been using 5^th Season brand)

salt to taste (I probably use ½ teaspoon)

Optional:  I have been adding about 1 – 2 teaspoons Balsamic vinegar lately, I’m not sure if it enhances the flavor, but I’ve had this bottle in the fridge for so long I feel I need to use it in something.

Place oil in warmed pan over medium heat.  Add onion and sauté till clear, 5 to 10 minutes.  If your family doesn’t like onions you can chop them really finely in a food processor and then sauté them for longer, till they are caramel color, they will disappear in the sauce.  This is what I have to do.  But you really don’t want to omit the onions as they add sweetness to the sauce.  When the onions are done, add the garlic and sauté for 1 minute.  Add the diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, sugar, basil, Italian herbs and salt, and vinegar, if you are using it.  Bring to a boil and then reduce and let it simmer (remember this is not on the lowest temperature, you want to see a few bubbles) for at least 20 minutes, uncovered.

This is a quick easy sauce to make, but I know it’s not as convenient as opening a jar.  You may need to think ahead some if you need spaghetti to be a super quick meal.  I plan my meals out by the week and sometimes I will make the spaghetti sauce on the weekend if I know it’s on the menu for the week.

Enjoy!