Thursday, March 5, 2009

We ate him... the Chicken: Part 2 of 2

Zed and I roasted the Chicken and had a mini-feast this evening... I think we are both ready for after dinner naps.


I ended up doing something simple - lemon, thyme, rosemary, salt, pepper, garlic and olive oil marinated with the chicken over night, then we roasted it for a couple hours this afternoon. Not only was the marinade easy (just throw everything together in a Ziploc bag), but lemon-rosemary chicken was the last bit of chicken I had a few years ago before I stopped eating it, so it seemed like a good place to start.

After three years of fish once in awhile and nothing else, getting back into meat eating will definitely be a slow process, but I'm looking forward to discovering some great new dishes.

The bones and other good stuff are simmering away in a big pot right now for some chicken stock, so we will brave the next "cold-snap" with the knowledge of a good bowl of soup in the very near future.

6 comments:

Chris said...

Sounds like a great experience and a delicious dish.

Isabelle said...

Glad you liked it! Good luck with the meat reintegration.

Court said...

Roast chicken and potatoes are one of the BEST things to eat on a cold winter night.

Marianne said...

It definitely was delicious... and leftovers should last a few more days (definitely an economical positive).

I'm going to try a risotto with the stock, so I suppose the chicken goes on past part 2...

Kevin Kossowan said...

Admittedly, I'm intrigued as to the reasons for the change of heart. Forgive me if you've posted about it, which you likely have, and I missed it...

Marianne said...

Kevin,

I originally stopped eating meat when I was living at home - my parents bought meat from the grocery store that I was sure came from a feed lot. After failing at persuading them to buy meat and other food from different sources, I gave up and figured tofu and veggies mixed with a bit of fish was the best way to get around this and their buying habits.

But during the past few months, I realized the tofu/imitation meat products as well as the veggies that made up my diet were probably flown in from halfway across the world and the way they were produced and processed contained the same problems as the meat I had stopped eating (corporate farming, shipping, etc.).

I went to the iWeek sessions with Jon Steinmann (Deconstructing Dinner - http://cjly.net/deconstructingdinner/) a while ago, and he spoke a lot about eating local and the farmer-eater relationship and how we are out of touch with it and our food. My mom is from a farm family and I've seen problems out by my grandparents farm too... everyone has left because they cannot compete with the large farms; it's just fields of oil wells now, with little to no food production.

In the end I decided it was probably better to support local, independent farmers than eat my tofu... I finally realized that I live in Alberta and just accepted it. Although I'm finding it difficult to reintegrate meat into my diet after not eating it for so long.

I'm also going to try to grow and preserve/freeze more of my own vegetables to get away from the problems I was having with my veggie options, and am hoping to experiment this summer on my condo balcony with planters (any suggestions would be appreciated!).

You should also check out a write up by Isabelle at The Little Red Kitchen (http://thelittleredkitchen.blogspot.com/2009/02/little-meat-filled-kitchen.html). She just moved a while ago from PEI and also started eating meat again for similar reasons.

I hope this condensed explanation helps... I could likely go on forever.