Gimme some mustard, honey!

Growing up, I always ALWAYS hated mustard. There wasn't a thing anyone could do to get me to eat it; just the smell made me irate! Then, I was diagnosed with all these food intolerances/allergies and suddenly, the list of condiments that I loved that I could still enjoy shrunk severely. Much to my chagrin, many mustards were 100% safe for me to eat and, desperate as I was, I figured I should give them a chance. I still won't eat run of the mill bright yellow mustard, but honey mustard is firmly on my list of wonderful things to put on food.

Here's something I whipped up tonight for dinner without any planning at all (or measuring!), just using what I had on hand. It turned out great and I'll definitely be making it again.

MsChristy's Happy Honey Mustard Shrimp & Chicken

Ingredients: (Please note, these are my best guesses on amounts, as I rarely measure while I'm cooking up something in a hurry!)

• 1 lb chicken breast tenderloins
• 1/2 lb raw peeled shrimp (thawed, if bought frozen)
• 5 Tbsp cooking sherry or white wine
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 Tbsp minced garlic
• 1/2 sweet onion, diced
• 4 Tbsp honey mustard
• 1-2 Tbsp honey (I like it sweet, so I used 2 Tbsp)
• 1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1 Tbsp Balsamic vinegar
• 1 Tbsp brown sugar
  
• 2 tsp molasses
  
• dash chili powder (more if you like it spicy)
  
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 2 tsp paprika
• dash garlic powder
• salt and pepper to taste (optional)

Instructions:

1. In a large non-stick skillet over medium-high heat, add olive oil and 3 Tbsp sherry (reserve the other 2 Tbs for step 2); mix in minced garlic and diced onion. Cook for a few minutes to soften onion slightly, then lay chicken pieces in single layer on top. Cook for about five minutes until perimeter of chicken turns white, then turn each piece of chicken over. Sprinkle chicken with salt, pepper and garlic powder if desired.
2. While chicken cooks, in a small dish mix all the remaining ingredients, including the 2 Tbsp sherry not used in step 1, EXCEPT for the shrimp.
3. When chicken is white all the way through, pour the sauce mix over the chicken, making sure all pieces are evenly coated on both sides. Cover with lid or aluminum foil and decrease heat to medium, cooking for five minutes.
4. When sauce is bubbling and has reduced slightly, add shrimp and stir in to coat with sauce. Cover and cook for another five minutes or until all shrimp is pink.
5. Remove from heat and serve over jasmine rice with lightly seasoned steamed vegetables.
   

The Best Roasted Chicken EVER

For Thanksgiving last year, I decided that I was going to brine the turkey based on a recipe I found with photo instructions that seemed easy enough to follow. I'd heard from many people that brined turkeys were the best and wow, were they right! Thanksgiving was going to be even more awesome than before, despite the serious lack of dairy, gluten, eggs and pork.

Then I started thinking about how rarely I make a whole turkey. Would it work on just a turkey breast? Yes, it does, though obviously the quantities must be adjusted. That started me thinking about chickens...how much better would a whole roasted chicken taste if it were brined first?

Let's just say that when I roast a chicken, it's always brined now. There is no comparison.


Part One: How to Brine a Whole Chicken

Ingredients:

• 1/4-1/2 cup coarse Kosher salt**
• 1 gallon water
• 1 package Fresh Poultry Herbs (sage, rosemary, thyme) or 2 Tbsp dried poultry herbs or herbs you love, fresh or dried
• 1 tsp ground pepper
• 1 Tbsp molasses
• 1 Tbsp minced garlic
• 1/4 cup brown sugar (optional)
• Stock Pot (needs to be large enough for a whole chicken to submerge completely)
• Ice Cubes (about 2 trays worth)
• Whole THAWED chicken (3-5 pounds, rinsed with cavity cleaned out thoroughly; discard giblets and neck; pat chicken dry with paper towels; extremely important that the entire chicken is COMPLETELY THAWED first)

Instructions:

1. Place stock pot on large burner of stove, turn on high and add these ingredients: water, salt, herbs, pepper, molasses, brown sugar.
   
2. Stir until combined and heat to a boil.
   
3. Turn off heat and steep, with lid on, for approximately half an hour.
   
4. Stir well, then add ice, stirring until most of the ice is melted or let it sit for another ten-twenty minutes. The water needs to be less than room temperature before the chicken goes in.
5. Add whole chicken, breast side down and angled towards bottom (feet up!) until it is completely submerged; add additional cold water if needed and put the lid on.
6. Place entire stock pot in the refrigerator for 2 to 6 hours; the longer the chicken rests in the water, the stronger the flavor.
   
7. Remove chicken and either roast, grill, or cook in a rotisserie cooker. You could probably also go ahead and cut the chicken up and use in pieces if you really want to...I hate cutting up raw chicken, so if I want chicken pieces I buy them already cut up. It's a lot easier to take a chicken apart after it's cooked, anyhow. Discard brining solution.

**Salt content- I do not have figures on how much of the salt used ends up in the meat; most of it is discarded and my partner, who has high blood pressure, has not had any problems from eating brined foods. Please check with your doctor if you are on a sodium-restricted diet before using this recipe!


Part Two: Roasting a Whole Chicken

I have two pans I use for roasting chicken; one is a basic clear glass 9x13 baking dish and the other is a large roasting pan with rack. I've used both and each have their good points and bad. MOST of the time I use the glass dish because a single chicken in my huge roasting pan is a real waste of energy and it's harder to clean up! Also, it makes for a dryer chicken, which some people prefer, especially if you're really watching fat calories and you want the fat to drain completely away from the chicken.

For this, I'm going to show you how to use a glass 9x13 baking dish.

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Take the recently brined chicken out of the brining solution and place breast-side down in center of a 9x13 glass baking dish. Pour 1-2 cups of cold water in bottom of dish (this keeps the breast from sticking and keeps it nice and moist while also pulling the fat away).
3. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, garlic powder and other seasonings/herbs as desired.Cook in preheated oven for 60 minutes on center rack.
4. Remove from oven and flip chicken over so that breast-side is now facing up. Season as in step 3. Add more water if needed.
5. Return to oven and cook for another 45-60 minutes, using a meat thermometer to determine internal temperature has reached recommended levels (I usually shoot for temps between 140 and 165 in the breast, which means the dark meat is almost always 10-20 degrees higher; check here for FSIS recommendations on safe chicken handling and cooking.)
6. Remove from oven and let chicken rest for 5-10 minutes before carving up. We usually have one meal with fresh roasted chicken then use the rest for lunches and other meals after I de-bone the entire chicken. If you like to make soups, save the carcass to make broth!

Leftover Roasted Chicken Meal Ideas:

1. Chicken tacos, burritos or enchiladas - shred chicken, season to taste with pepper, paprika, chili powder and cumin cook with white beans; use appropriate type of tortilla and toppings
2. Chicken, rice/quinoa/pasta/potatoes and steamed vegetables, either mixed together (to make chicken go further) or served separately
3. Chicken chowder, soup or stew (another good way to stretch a small amount of chicken further)
4. Chicken salad or salad with chicken
5. BBQ Chicken (I like Bull's Eye Barbeque Sauce in the "Sweet and Tangy" flavor...free of high fructose corn syrup and free of gluten, soy, eggs and dairy) served with corn on the cob and coleslaw made with Brianna's Poppyseed Dressing instead of mayo; buns/bread for those who can have it.Chicken Mac 'n Cheeze using Daiya Vegan Cheese and Ancient Harvest Quinoa Elbow Macaroni
   

Ingredient Reading FAILURE

One would think after fourteen months of learning to scrutinize every single ingredients list on every single food I put in my mouth, I'd be an expert by now. Unfortunately, even expert ingredient list readers can be tripped up.

Sometimes it's due to things outside of our control, like sudden unannounced product changes. Usually, however, it's our own fault. Life decides to speed up, we get in a hurry, we reach out and grab something we think is something else, then we compound the problem by not catching the mistake until after the package is sitting empty in the trash due to a sudden snack attack.

This tendency to go into autopilot at the grocery store has brought me to my metaphorical knees more than once and it's very much the one thing that continues to plague me, even after all the cravings have passed and that switch in my head has reset so that the foods that really ARE bad for me smell and taste bad.

This time around it was a bag of crisps. We were at the grocery store a couple of weekends ago and I passed by the Riceworks display, remembered I was out and I snagged two bags. What I thought I grabbed were the Sea Salt and Salsa Fresca flavors, as those are the two I can eat (no soy or dairy, all are gluten-free). After sitting down and eating the entire bag Wednesday night, then waking up Thursday and feeling progressively horrible, I stopped and thought about what all I had eaten the day before and spotted the bag in the trash, realizing suddenly that instead of Salsa Fresca, I had bought the Sweet Chili flavor, which is chock full of soy.

The lesson I took from this was to SLOW DOWN and LOOK. The red and green packages obviously invoke traffic signals and they're a good analogy for food intolerances and allergies. That red bag should have screamed STOP to me, but I was in such a hurry that it didn't register...and once it had made it home into the pantry, it was "safe" and my brain completely set it aside for any further consideration. Assuming everything I've bought is safe when I know that I've been getting sloppy is dangerous. Days are lost feeling extremely ill, which then makes everyone around me suffer. If I had a job, that would be lost wages if I had to call in sick.

The hidden blessing to having food intolerances instead of true food allergies is that such a mistake doesn't land me in the hospital with anaphylaxis. Usually it isn't until the next day when every thing's happily landed in my intestinal tract that things start to go very very wrong. While I wouldn't wish this ailment on anyone, I do have to be grateful for that (at least for now).