20 Days in 5 Hours

On Saturday, I had three burners going at once, sauteeing onions on one and turkey with onions in the other two.
Upper left burner: Meaty Tomato Sauce
Upper right: sauce for Turkey Lasagna
Lower right: Tomato sauce with a dash of cinnamon to remind me of my mom's chicken kapama -- a Greek dish.
All of these dishes are either straight from my favorite cookbook, Cook's Illustrated's Best Light Recipe), or based on a recipe in the book.


All in all, I cooked

• Turkey meatballs (5 servings)
  
• Turkey meatloaf (5 servings)
  
• 4 medium pizza crusts (8 servings)
  
• Turkey lasagna (8 servings)
  
• Meaty (turkey) tomato sauce (5 servings)
  
• Cinnamon tomato sauce (6 servings)
  

Including the two meals of rosemary chicken already in there, there are 20 dinners for two in our freezer! Ignore the Lean Cuisine, which is reserved for a dinner emergency. I don't think we'll need those anymore.

Before: Bag-o-veggie scraps, veggie stock, chicken stock, rosemary chicken chunks, butternut squash soup, frozen chick peas and black beans

After:

The plus side of it all? (Besides the other things I mentioned before) A full freezer works more efficiently!

Quick Freezer Cooking: Bulk Meat

The other day, Mr. Green spotted chicken breasts on sale at the grocery store, so he picked up 6 of them and I went to work soon after he brought them in the door.

I prepared Cook's Illustrated's Garlic & Herb Marinade (from their book, The Best Make-Ahead Recipe), trimmed the breasts, and sliced them for three different preparations: Kebabs, chunks, and cutlets. I labeled plastic bags accordingly, put the chicken in and a third of the marinade, and coated them before tossing them in the freezer.

Garlic & Herb Marinade
Good for chicken, pork, beef, lamb, shrimp, fish, and vegetables.
Process in a food processor or blender until smooth, about 20 seconds:

• 1/2 cup EVOO
• 1/4 cup water
• 1/4 cup fresh parsley, tarragon, or basil leaves or
• 2 Tbsp fresh rosemary or thyme leaves
• 1 shallot, chopped
• 6 medium garlic close, minced
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp ground black pepper

Save 1/4 cup of the marinade and save. Place meat (or veggies) in a ziploc bag, pour in the remaining amount, and refrigerate for up to 2 days (or freeze). When ready to serve add 2 Tbsp lemon juice to the remaining marindae and pour it over the cooked meat.

Voila! I know, it doesn't look as appetizing as the photos on food blogs -- you don't exactly want to lick these things off of your screen. The point is that there is no trimming, cubing, or keeping fresh herbs on hand to prepare three healthy meals at the last minute. In fact, Mr. Green already succumbed to temptation one night after we arrived home late and tired from work. Even from freezer to grill, the kebabs were delicious! (no thawing necessary)

I chose the rosemary garlic marinade because it did not involve marinating the meat in vinegar or lemon juice, two acidic flavors that the freezer amplifies. This recipe is nice because you use the marinade (with lemon) while plating the meal, too.

Crockpot Vegetable Stock

Back to the "waste not" theme from yesterday ... I recently read an article that changed my world pertaining to food waste. It's a simple concept: Dedicate a freezer container to clean vegetable scraps and, when the container is full, turn it into stock.

Changed. My. World.

Now, I probably get that bag out of the freezer twice a day to contribute some scraps and the bag was full in about two weeks. My first attempt at achieving a flavorful vegetable stock was a success, and waaaay too easy! I love to use stock as a low-fat and no-sugar way to flavor grains by substituting stock for water and butter or oil.

For good measure, I sauteed some shallots in olive oil beforehand just in case, added my cheapskate version of a bouquet garni (tossed in dried marjoram, rosemary, thyme, bay leaf without the cheesecloth), 8 peppercorns, and enough water to cover the vegetables.


The first bag contained:

• Tomato stems and cores
• Red pepper stems, seeds, and that white stuff on the ribs
• Butternut squash skins
  
• Outer layers of onions, garlic, shallots
• Avocado pit

After 8 hours, I pulled the solids from the pot, pushed the water out of them using a colander,

and had a delicious stock. Be sure to cool it down quickly before putting it in the fridge or freezer! I use freezer packs and a few ice cubes.



When saving scraps, DO include:

• Onion peels (will give it a darker color)
  
• Garlic ends
• Stems of leafy greens
• Carrot tops and greens
• Apple and pear cores
• Stems of fresh herbs
• Turnip and parsnip peelings

When saving scraps, DO NOT include:

• Bitter or waxy plant parts, such as cucumber peels, stone fruit pits, or citrus peels (oops! I had an avocado pit in there, but it seemed to do no harm)
  
• Potatoes (they do not freeze well)
• Anything moldy
  

An additional bonus with vegetable stock is that you won't have to fuss over separating the fat from the stock, because there is none!

I have two questions for readers:

• Have you ever used beet trimmings in your stock? I'm curious about the effect it has on the color of the stock -- does it turn raspberry color?
  
• Does a vegetable stock effectively harness nutrients, or does the stewing destroy them?
  

Crockpot Poultry Stock

During my stint in the Peace Corps, I lived with a family in rural Central Asia and noticed that very little goes to waste. There are no grocery stores that provide you with the choice of paper or plastic for free. If you want to carry your groceries home, you either brought a bag with you or bought once in the bazaar. Similarly, food and household items rarely come in packaging. What packaging made it home was either saved and repurposed, or (what little there was) burned in the oven to bake bread.

Bread was eaten until it was gone, and although I never saw moldy bread, we ate our fair share of hard, almost-stale bread. Food scraps were deposited in a bucket that doubled as the cow's trough. It was difficult to waste food.

Here, it is much easier. Without a cow in the backyard or a wood-burning oven, I attempt to use every food scrap possible, but certainly come up short (I have no qualms about throwing away fat); and I can't directly repurpose every piece of paper that comes in the door, but just hope that my diligent recycling makes some sort of difference. As a novice environmentalist living in a rented house, I haven't yet delved into the world of composting. As with many environmentally responsible undertakings, I feel as though I need to know more about composting and I need some capital to start the project. I haven't yet gotten around to acquiring either, so when the opportunity to make a turkey carcass into another meal presented itself last Thanksgiving, I was excited to give it a try. It is incredibly easy, and no carcass has been wasted in the Green house ever since!

I started by adapting a Joy of Cooking recipe for stock, cooking the following ingredients on low for 10 hours:

• Turkey carcass / bones
• 1 onion, chopped
  
• 1-2 carrots, chopped
  
• 1 celery rib, chopped
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 bouquet garni (a combination of fresh herbs tied in a cheesecloth)
• A few peppercorns
  
• 6-8 cups of water, or enough to just cover the ingredients
  

The result was fairly fatty, which I later learned (after reading the "about" section in Joy of Cooking) was because I included the skin in the stock. I was under the mistaken impression that stock was supposed to have some fat in it. Not so! Strip the carcass of any skin and fat that you can. Otherwise, you will have a fatty stock on your hands and it will be a little ... er ... greasy. Yuck!

I have discovered four ways to reduce the fat in your stock:

1. Trim all the fat and skin from the carcass.
2. Cool the stock and scrape the fat off of the top.
3. Use a fat skimmer when the stock is done. You will need to strain the stock anyway, so the fat skimmer can double as a strainer. I, however, couldn't get the hang of this method when I used my simple skimmer, so I bought a fat separator, which I think is the lazier (*ahem* more efficient *ahem*) method.
   
4. Use a fat separator that has a strainer. Not only is it ... er ... more efficient, I think it's just cool how it works: With the stopper in the spout, the spout stays dry; with the stopper out, only the water-based liquid rises through the spout. The fat stays at the surface and out of the spout until it's almost empty. In the photo below, I think I did a fairly decent job of keeping the fat out of the ingredients, because the line at the top is pretty thin.
   

Stopper In













Stopper Out















Since that first time, I have made stock a few times and learned that improvisation is fine. I never include the celery -- just because I never have it on hand -- and use dried herbs (thyme and oregano) instead of putting together a fresh bouquet garni. Beware your main ingredient, however: Last week, Mr. Green smoked a Jamaican jerk-flavored chicken on the grill and that carcass yielded a spicy stock. I added it to reconstitute a ginger butternut squash soup I made and froze earlier in the month and it destroyed the delicate ginger taste of the soup. Don't get me wrong -- it was still a nicely flavored soup -- just not the flavor I was aiming for!

I have now gotten into the habit of getting out my crockpot whenever getting a chicken ready for the oven or grill. Once those giblets come out, they go straight to the crockpot, soon a few carrots and an onion join them, then the chicken; and I cook the stock overnight. In the morning, I divvy up the stock into freezer or fridge containers. I try to cool them quickly so they don't raise the temperature in the freezer or fridge and don't sit too long on the counter at a bacteria-inducing temperature.

This is a great way to turn one meal into two or three distinct meals -- the first being the roasted /grilled chicken -- and the stock and meat can easily be converted into:

1. Chicken Barley Soup (prep: 40 minutes, due to barley cooking)
   
2. Chicken with couscous, onions, and raisins (prep: 15 minutes)
   
3. Salad with chicken (prep: as long as it takes you to chop up the salad vegetables!)

Mr. Green smoked another chicken (seasoned with lemon, garlic, and rosemary) the other night ... please share other quick meals for roasted chicken and chicken stock so I can give them a try -- you may see them here!