To Kill a CluckingBird.... (Not for the faint of heart... or people with pet chickens)

I'M NOT GOING TO KILL A CHICKEN!!!!!!!!

Yes, by being a consumer of chicken meat I am, in part, responsible for the death of lots and lots of TASTY chickens.... And so are you.. Just sayin....

I'm going to take apart a chicken...

If you live by yourself like I do and you enjoy cooking a variety of chicken pieces you can either... 

• Cook a whole chicken and have left overs...
• Buy a scary scary bag of mutilated "Chicken parts"
• Or buy a whole chicken, to your standard of quality, and cut the thing up! 

I find buying a whole chicken and cutting it up gives you more of a say on how the meat is cut and a  better variety of quality of chicken to choose from over the Grab-Bag-O-Chicken-Parts. I like getting a local bird that has had the opportunity to run around a lil... Cause they taste better!

If you've ever boiled a chicken for soup, been used as slave labor for church dinners,or eaten a whole chicken by yourself (not judging...) You probably know your way around the basic meat and bones of a chicken. This won't be too hard.

You need to be working on a surface that doesn't move, that you don't mind bleaching, and working with a bird that is completely thawed if it was ever frozen!

Remove any organs, heart, liver, what ever that really brown long thing is..... From the cavity and wash the bird with cool water til water runs clear.

To take the bird apart you need to either be really comfortable with a VERY sharp knife (like my 8inch slicer) or use shears. They do make poultery shears made for cutting through bone that are very sturdy. You don't want a blade (knife or on scissors ) that will bend on you or is dull. Its a slippery,slimy, gross bird, if you don't have a good hold on it you don't want a bad blade.

 I remove the wings and neck for stock. Some people use the organs also but they make the stock a little to dark and .... well organ tasting for my .. taste.

Pull the wing out and feel for the joint connecting it to the breast. I like to cut down the wing a little leaving more meat on the breast. Just go slow and cut the meat and skin back away from the joint it you are unsure.

This is what the breast will look like with the wing removed at the joint. It's pretty far back in there and takes some cutting. Wings are the hardest to remove so the hard part is over.

Removing the neck is rather easy since it is nothing but lots of little joints. Push back the skin, pull the neck away from the chicken and push your knife straight through it. Little graphic.. I know...

Next and last, are the thigh and leg pieces or together a "chicken quarter." Flip the chicken over and cut the skin that covers the thigh meat and joint

Keep trimming the skin and pulling the leg and thigh away from the breast. Feel for the joint connecting the thigh and breast. It will be small for how much muscle is there.

Slicing the meat away from the breast then is very straight forward. I cut as much as I can away with the thigh. Trimming skin between the breast and thigh should usually favor the breast because it drys out easier but depending on what you are making you might want more skin on the quarter, like for grilling.

This is where I leave my chicken as far as carving goes. A few more common cuts include removing leg and thigh and separating the wing pieces. You can also remove the breast meat by cutting against the bone. If you are stuffing breast I recommend this over using already separated pieces because of a very sad day with chopped up white meat I couldn't stuff as planned. 

 Now bleach your boards and cabinet tops! Chicken is gross... but Ohhh so tasty!

Curse of the teeeeny-tiny GRAIN! Dunt Dunt DUNNNNNN!

I spent 3 weeks in Colorado and the food scene out there is a foodies dream. Every little town has a little shop that has homemade, organic, local, special something out there and every coffee shop does too.

Typical convo:
-"Would you like to try our breakfast burrtios?"
-"Hmm What's in it?"
-"Farm fresh brown eggs, homemade elk chorizo, local sharp cheddar, organic red skin potatos, in a full lard homemade tortilla, and any of that you want"  (Pointing to a homemade salsa bar)
-"*SLLLLUUURRRP!* YES PLEASE!"
-"Would you like a cup of Durango roast coffee with local honey and half-n-half? Or a piece of homemade pie to go?"
-"Am I dead? Is this heaven? Will you adopt me?!?!"

While out there, a little old lady told me that women of my 'age (early twenties) and generation need natural sources of iron and calcium and not taking those evil man made supplements.' And since I totally agree and the fact that this lady look like she had never been told 'No' in her life.... I ended up buy half a pound of a very fine grain that was only a few bucks.

Amaranth

Its a teeny tiny grain the size of poppy seed that the Ancient Central and South American empires thrived on.. Then the Spanish came... outlawed it and killed everybody off.. THE END.. Sad...

The Spanish didn't like the grain because the Aztecs considered it holy and used it in human sacrifice rituals.  Mixing it with honey and human blood making little figures out of it, then eating it. EWWWWW!

The grain is said to be CURSED to make sick any descendants of the Spanish that outlawed it.

Almost extinct, the grain has made a serious recovery in the last few years once it was recognized as a SUPER GRAIN. Loaded with butt-kicking calcium, iron, fiber, protein, magnesium and 3 essential amino acids that corn, wheat, rice and potatoes don't even have. .25 cup of amaranth has a crazy %60 percent of you daily iron! No wonder it was given to people as a cure for 'laziness' and woman after their 'monthly time' or pregnancy! Developing treatments for anemia without modern medicine!! That's amazing!

Cooking this stuff up...
No one seem to have any real instructions. Alot of 'boil it' and 'pop it and mix with honey' ... Ok How am I supposed to do that?!?!

Boiling it like couscous with about the same 1:2 grain to water ratio seems to work well. I added a little cut chicken sausage and it was really great. The consistency takes some getting used to and its kinda like oatmeal in that you feel like you have to chew but it doesn't do much and you don't really need to.

I next tried 'popping' it. I had no idea what to expect. BUT it really does pop! In to tiny little white popcorn looking beads. I tried a few methods without alot of success. Adding oil just made all the little seeds jump from the pan!

Oil burns, dry burns, water doesn't work at all.

I went for half popped half toasted and then added honey. Cooked it down slightly then poured it out on some parchment and let it cool. Instead of forming a little person to eat I went with a round ball and had it with my coffee.

Very toasty, not crazy sweet, and ultimately really good. It reminded me of some middle-eastern desserts made with sesame seeds. I'm thinking of a shortbread cookie with a thin honey and toasted amaranth mixture poured over for something different at Christmas. The little old lady in Colorado suggested toasting them and sprinkling them on salads which sounds great!

Kinda-Caribbean-Shrimp Lettuce Not-So-Wraps

GREAT FORTUNE THIS MORNING!

Do you ever look around your kitchen and get inspired by just whatcha got! Or realize you have everything for a favorite recipe without trying?! I LOVE homemade BBQ of any kind. My mother used to make BBQ chicken and Thighs in an electric skillet growing up and its still a huge favorite of mine. The range of GOOD BBQ in the culinary world is crazy wide from Sweet-celery seed-saturated KC BBQ to Spicy-smokey- Texas Pit. All ranges of fruity, sugary, smoky, vinegary, salty, spicy etc.

At the store today fresh shrimp were on super-duper sale! (Scary buying sea food in middle of the Mid-West but you have to take chances for good food) I had half of a REALLY GOOD pineapple at home and a ton of great peaches. FRUITY BBQ SHIRMP ON.... ON... on... ummm.... Sandwich? On a stick? Just on a fork out of the pan?..( it has happened before). How about the romaine hearts I have!?! Ohhhh with red peppers.. maybe some kinda cool, thick dressing ** This is what I sound like inside my head, or if the dog is on the floor sometimes out-loud to him**

I shelled and tailed (those might be technical terms.. they might be mine... not sure) 15 medium sized shrimp and set them aside. I like to do any meat prep before anything gets going then clean and set it aside so I'm not having to wash my hands and board all the time. 

Next I smashed and diced two BIG cloves of garlic, Sliced a small red onion, half a ripe peach, and an inch thick round of pineapple (core and skin removed). I like my fruit in big chucks. This all goes into a skillet with 1/2 a tbsp of EVOO. Cook on Med-High until it gets brown and starts to fall apart.

Then to make it saucy! I always have canned tomato products in the pantry (paste, sauce, diced, stewed) but today to my amazement I was clean out... Didn't even have ketchup! So I put a handful (1/2 cup)of cherry tomatoes in my mini-chopper and made my own puree. Add some light brown sugar, balsamic, apple cider vinegar, yellow mustard, and a squeeze of half a lime.

While your shrimp cook let's make up a thick creamy FAT FREE sauce. I love Fage yogurt but in this mayo could work to. (I'm anti-mayo by personal opinion). A 1/3 of a cup of fage in a bowl with a sprinkle of Cayenne pepper, Thyme, and Garlic Salt makes a wonderful tasty thick spread.

I picked the biggest, blemish free leaves off of my head of romaine and they weren't that big... so instead of wraps they will be not-so-wraps. I topped the leaves with thin sliced red bell peppers and our thick and creamy thyme spread. There is enough shrimp to top 4 leaves really heavy.

When your shrimp are cooked through and the sauce as thick or saucy as you like it, add your shrimp to your leaves and dig right in! I dug in so quick I forgot to take a finished picture til after my side of roasted cauliflower was done.

Kinda-Caribbean-Shrimp Lettuce Not-So-Wraps   350 calories for ENTIRE recipe. NOM NOM NOM
Filling 

15 medium sized shrimp
1 inch round fresh pineapple
half a peach
Small red onion
2 cloves of garlic
1 tbsp brown sugar
1/2 cup cherry tomatos (before blending) blended
about a tbsp of Balsamic, Apple cider vinegar, yellow or honey mustard, and lime juice.
Spread
1/3 cup Fage greek yogurt, Cayenne pepper, thyme, and garlic salt.
Lettuce leaves and sliced red bell peppers.