Tamarind Chicken Hash

 

Have you ever made too much of a particular dish and after a couple of meals there is just no way you want to reheat another plate of it?  That happened to me the other night when I made Tamarind Glazed Chicken legs.  I knew I shouldn't use the entire package but I did anyway.  I took them to work for a couple of days and then I didn't want to look at another chicken leg.  I almost thought about tossing the leftovers but being in the poor house tends to make a person less wasteful. 

 

So this morning I thought I would use up the rest of the butternut squash that I had cubed up.  My plan was to cook it with some chorizo and crack a few eggs in the skillet as well.  When I opened the fridge, all I could see was that big container of chicken legs that I couldn't bear to see go to waste.  I ended up making a hash that was really flavorful.  So, I am really pleased to have a wonderful recipe (Tamarind Glazed Chicken) that I can work into a completely different dish the next day.  More bang for my buck in way!! 

 

 

Tamarind Chicken, Chorizo and Butternut Squash Hash

 

2 leftover Tamarind Glazed Chicken legs, meat chopped into small chunks

1 cup cubed butternut squash

1/4 cup diced red onion

1 garlic clove, diced

2-3 inch link of chorizo

1/2 a jalapeno, chopped

2 T chopped cilantro

1. Heat some bacon grease (or fat of choice) in a skillet.  Add the squash and cover with a lid.  Toss the squash a couple times cooking for about 5 minutes.
2. Add the onion and garlic and cook until the onions are soft.  (The squash should be cooked through by this time.)
3. Make a little space in the center of the skillet and add the chorizo, cooking until it is browned through. 
4. Add the chicken and jalapeno.  Toss to coat all the ingredients in the chorizo grease.  Cook until the chicken is heated through.
5. After you've plated the hash, sprinkle with the cilantro and serve with sliced avocado.

 

 

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Omelette

I like making omelett muffins, spanish tortillas, frittatas or whatever else they are known by.  I just like having my breakfast made ahead of time so all I have to do is gently heat it in the morning.  It saves me time in the morning and I like that.  I can go to the pool without getting up extra early and on the mornings I don't go to the pool I can either sleep in a little bit or spend the morning relaxing before I go in to work.

The good thing about these omelette type dishes is that they are all quite easy to make and can be loaded with whatever you like.  This omelette is loaded with butternut squash, green & red bell peppers, onions and sausage.  Just saute it all up first and pour the scrambled eggs over the top and let it cook on low.  Towards the end pop your oven/broiler proof skillet under the broiler and let it finish cooking.  Voila!!  Breakfast for the work week is complete!

Odds & Ends

After my mass cooking for my work week I am usually left with a few scraps of various veggies and sometimes a little meat.  I only cook for one so I don't always throw it all in because then I'd have way more prepared than I could eat.  I'd rather bag the veggies and freeze the meat in order to make a different dish later on.  So today I found myself with some veggies in the fridge and not much direction in the culinary sense.  After some thought and visit to the freezer I thought I would just throw a bunch of stuff in the skillet and hope it turns out.  Here's what I had on hand: a ziploc baggie of cubed butternut squash, a bell pepper, onion and some mushrooms.  The freezer yielded some Italian sausage so I decided to combine it all.  It turned out pretty tasty and I was able to use everything up.  The bad part is that it made quite a bit and so I'll probably be eating this for the next 4 or 5 days.  Maybe I'll freeze a couple of servings and take them with me when I go to my parent's place.  Here's a pic of the dish: 

I just slice the onions and peppers and sauteed them until they were soft and starting to caramelize.  Then I added the mushrooms.  While this was cooking, I cheated and nuked the squash a little bit so that it was partially cooked.  I removed the onions mixture from the skillet and took the casing off the sausage and made mini-meatballs.  I dropped them in the skillet and cooked until they were 3/4 of the way done.  I wiped out most of the grease and then added the onion mixture and squash.  I rummaged around in the fridge and found a small container of fire-roasted tomatoes (about 1/3C.) and added that with a splash of chicken stock.  I covered and let it stew for about 10 minutes and called it good.

I also prepared a chicken dish that I found on PaleoMiddleEastern's blog.  Here's the link to the recipe.  It's super tasty!  I used all the same ingredients but my cooking method was different because I didn't want the oven on for an hour.  It was pretty toasty here today and we haven't turned on the air yet so I didn't want to heat the house up more than it already was.  It was just 40 degrees here a couple of days ago and rainy yesterday but it warmed up to 85 today.  So the dogs and I were fussy little babies about the house being warm.  I ended up preparing this in the crock pot and didn't have a bit of problem.  I just put all the veggies in the bottom and piled the chicken (I used legs) on top.  I put it on high and let it go for about 3 1/2 hours.  After a couple of hours I took the chicken out and browned it in a skillet so it would look so pale.  I put them back in the pot and mixed it all up.  I was really please with how it turned out.  Super yummy!

Today, I took a little leap towards my next goal...exercise.  I don't do any right now and I know that I need to be moving.  This is probably going to be tough for me.  I took the dogs to an area near our house that is only used a couple times a year for tractor pulls and an antique tractor show.  It has lots of open space so the mutts can be off leash and I don't have to worry about running into other people or run a chance of them getting to the road.  Today I decided to do some short "bursts" of running.  Although I don't think you could call what I was doing running or bursts of speed.  At one point I kicked it in high gear and was loping along when the little guy thought it would be fun to sideswipe me.  I, of course, dropped like a sack of potatoes.  At least I was on the meadow so the impact wasn't too bad which is good because I dropped right on my bum knee.  It has a huge scab from a tumble I took about a week and half ago that skinned both knees, sprained my thumb and tore a big whole in the knee of my jeans.  Perhaps I'll get better at staying upright while running or at the very least maybe I'll learn how to fall more gracefully!



Dinner Pics

Just wanted to put a few dinner pics up.  I need to do better about this but I usually cook in the evening and when I get done I just want to eat a be done with the day.  Recently I've been thinking a lot about the quality of foods that I've been buying.  I wish I were able to afford grass fed meats, game meats and organic veggies but the truth is I can't.  I am on a very, very limited budget and the organic/grass fed products are about double the price of traditional grocery fare.  I've got to make my funds go as far a possible.  I live very sparingly so there really is no way to make cuts in order to pay for better food.  I do work in a few items such as nitrate free bacon.  I am hoping to hunt for some game meat this year starting with turkey this spring.  I'm also pretty excited about my parents buying chicks this spring which means farm fresh eggs and maybe some fryers for butchering.  This will all help reduce the grocery bill while adding quality meat/eggs to the table.  I know that I spend a lot less on food because I no longer eat take out and I don't eat near the quantity that I previously did.

Anyway, here are some food pics of some recent dishes.  First up is a meal pic of grilled salmon, brussel sprouts and swiss chard.  I wasn't real keen on the chard but that may have been due to the preparation.  I had found a recipe that called for some lemon juice but I think it made it to sour/bitter for my liking.  I might try chard in the future but right now I'm in love with collard greens.

Here are some pork chops that I dusted with coconut flour.  They were pretty tasty.

This is mashed cauliflower that I added a little bit of coconut milk to in order to gain a little creaminess.  They were delicious with the chops and some collard greens.

Tonight I cooked some Italian sausage up then added onions and peppers to the skillet until they were soft and starting to caramelize.  Then I added a little organic sugar free mushroom pasta sauce that I found in the health market section of Hy-Vee.  I served this atop some spaghetti squash and thought it was absolutely scrumptious!!

Before I go, I wanted to share a couple of links that I stumbled across during the past week that will make hunting and gathering recipes more enjoyable.  As you know, I'm always checking TasteSpotting for veggie and meat recipes that I can tweak or use for inspiration.  Sometimes looking at all those cupcakes, cookies and pasta pics makes me miss the old days.  Well, not anymore!  I've discovered a couple of sites that are TasteSpotting-esque but for Paleo chefs!!!  They are called The Foodee and Chowstalker.  Now I can gaze at food pics all day long and feel good about it!!!  Yippeee!