My Warm, Fuzzy, Go-To Dinner Plan

In our house, we try to eat local. We try to eat whole, real foods. We try to be really back to basics, and enjoy the process of cooking together and sharing our meals. We mostly succeed, at least when it comes to making food ourselves and eating together. We sometimes cheat, and order food or use prepped foods. We sometimes get a little cranky about making dinner, losing the joy of the process. OK, I get cranky about that part.

I do have a go-to meal that stretches across days with variations and healthy options, and it's my favorite thing ever. I love taking a whole chicken, and seeing it through roasting, extra meals of chicken salad or similar, and then hearty, healthy soups from whole ingredients.

I've started loving variations on the soups and chicken salads, changing up the sides with the roast chicken, and playing with the herbs that make the crispy skin delicious.

Here are my tricks, which I encourage everyone to try. Taking good, whole, local ingredients and creating healthy, hearty meals is good for you and everyone who breaks bread with you. Oh, and my sweet husband is in charge of the bread making, so encourage your dinner-mates to bake bread, especially for soup!

Rosemary and (optional) Lemon Roast Chicken

1 whole chicken (2-6 lbs.)
1/2 lemon, cut in quarters (optional)
2 large sprigs rosemary
apx 3 Tbs olive oil
coarse salt (I prefer kosher)
fresh ground pepper
dried thyme

Preheat oven to 350, and set racks low in the oven (second lowest or lowest rung).

Get a whole, good quality chicken (with skin) and remove the innards and neck (in the cavity) and discard. (NB, You can use neck and innards for stock or gravy if you wish.) Wash inside and out, and pat dry with paper towels.

Rub skin with olive oil, coating bird. Place bird, breast up, on a roasting rack set in a roasting pan.

*You can also cut large slices of onion, place them in the bottom of a roasting pan - or any 9x13" pan - and set the bird directly on top. I like the roasting pan because it's easy clean up - also line the pan with aluminum foil to catch the drippings for easy clean up.*

Pull the small arms of the bird back behind the neck, and tuck in. (Like the chicken was lying on its back with it's hands behind its neck - it just tucks the wings down so they don't overcook pointing directly at the heat source)

Place the rosemary and lemons (optional) into the cavity of the bird. Just shove it all inside, whatever fits.

Sprinkle bird with coarse salt, thyme, and ground pepper. You can also add other dried herbs, etc. if you want to add other flavor to the crispy skin.

Cook for about 25 minutes per pound - this means that if you have a 4 pound bird, it's in the oven for about 90 minutes or so. *Use a meat thermometer to check the temp in the thickest part of the thigh, but don't hit the bone. It should roast to a temp of 165 - 170.

Remove from oven and LET IT REST for about 10 minutes BEFORE cutting it open. This will keep in the juices and make less mess, and make for a tastier meal!

Serve the breasts with sides of choice (you can roast veggies, steam veggies, make brown rice, a salad...etc.) I roast potates (fingerling, red, or even sweet) in a jelly-roll pan on the very bottom rack so it all roasts together - just cut up potatoes into little pieces (1-2" pieces), toss in olive oil, salt, pepper, fresh chopped and dried rosemary and any other dried herbs of choice, spread out on an olive-oiled pan and pop in the oven for about 45 min. For a nice brown I throw them on the rack on broil for about two minutes after the chicken comes out of the oven. Savory sweet potatoes are damn good and perfect in winter when they are abundant!

SAVE all the bones, skin, etc., and the leftover meat for additional meals -- see below. You can keep them ior aluminum foil, Pyrex, ziplock, or other storage in the fridge for a couple of days. (you can also freeze for making stock later, should you need a break.)

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Chicken Soup, with variations

First, and mist importantly, Stock:
leftover bones/carcass from roast chicken
water
rubbed sage
dried thyme
one very large onion (or 2-3 small onions) peeled and quartered
4 carrots, cut into large pieces
4 stalks celery, no leaves, cut into large pieces (discard the white ends)
5 large cloves garlic, peeled and chopped in large pieces or crushed
1-2 bay leaves
sea salt or kosher salt

Fill a very big pot with several cups of water. This will turn into your stock, so make enough for your soup, and any extra you may want (for rice and that sort of thing). I usually use a huge stock pot. Must hold enough to cover the carcass. Be sure you also have a container large enough to receive the strained stock when you are done (two large pots are the best things to use for the process, but you can improvise)

Put water on high heat on stove. Put in a large pinch or two of salt, a large pinch of sage, a large pinch of thyme. bay leaves. Toss in all the veggies.

Pull all the edible meat off the carcass, and set aside (refrigerate). Get our hands dirty doing this, you can get a lot of meat off! This will go into the soup in the end, yum.

Discard skin, or toss into stock. Toss all bones into stock and stir it up.

Bring to rolling boil. Reduce heat to med-low. Cover and allow to simmer for several hours (apx 3 - 4 hours) stirring every once in a while.

Strain into a large pot or other container(s). You can seal and refrigerate stock for about a week, or freeze. Use in rice, soups, etc. I like to make soup right away, so I strain into a big pot. (See below)

Chicken soup (with many options)

Note: Use as much or as little stock as you wish. If you want to cut the fat, you can cool it, and scoop off the congealed fat from the top of the stock since it rises and hardens. If you like very soupy soup, use more stock. Use more if you are adding pasta or white rice. If you are adding brown rice, use A LOT of extra stock.

Standard soup:
Chicken stock
chopped carrots
chopped celery
chopped onions
chopped garlic - four cloves
chopped potatoes (optional)
lentils (option)
rice (option)
pasta (option)
ripped kale, without the middle veins (in small pieces) (optional)
chicken in bite-sized pieces
rubbed sage
thyme
sea salt and pepper to taste
(for funky soup: sweet potatoes, potatoes, fresh dill, tomato paste)

Put a large pot of stock on the stove, at medium-high heat. Chop the veggies, using as many or as few as you need to fit the pot. Generally for a large pot, you will use about three medium carrots, three stalks of celery, one large onion. Put chopped veggies into pot, with herbs and seasonings, cover and bring to boil. Reduce heat to medium, or med-low, and allow to simmer, covered, for about an hour, stirring occasionally.

If adding kale, add first to allow more cooking time. Use about two cups of ripped up kale.

If adding potatoes, add early to allow more cooking time. Cut into bite-sized pieces.

If adding rice, only add about half a cup of dry rice, and be sure to have plenty of extra stock since the rice will soak up lots of liquid. Brown rice will soak up about twice as much liquid. You can add about a cup of pasta since it doesn't grow as much.

Add one or two bay leaves if desired. Add about one tablespoon of rubbed sage and one tablespoon of dried thyme. Either can be left out if desired. Add sea salt to taste (less salty is good to start, add more at the end)

Funky options for soup:

Add oil to large pot, fry up onion, garlic, herbs. Add other veggies, but not potatoes. Add stock and bring to boil. Add several cubed sweet potatoes and/or potatoes, and one tablespoon tomato paste, and simmer at low boil for 20 minutes, until potatoes cooked through. With immersion blender, blend until about half potatoes are creamed, leaving several for texture. Chop up fresh fill and add a small handful about two minutes before end of cooking. Delightfully different soup!

So you have my playbook now. Go forth and conquer a few meals a week!