Season to Season
December
Season to Season is a monthly look at the various foods that are
available fresh here in the Northwest. The column provides tips for
selecting food to bring home or enjoy when you're dining out.
Tasty Healthy Chicken Stock: The winter months, especially
around the holidays, is the time a lot of recipes call for chicken
stock. Soups, dressing for turkey and even paella often call out for
chicken stock. Have you ever tasted the kind you buy in a box at the
store all on its own? Not very flavorful in a good way and even the low
sodium versions are still packed with salt. So how can we get around
this and get a better stock?
It's actually very easy, takes about an hour in the kitchen and a
little extra space in the freezer. I begin by going to the market and
buying a whole organic chicken, then I take it over to the butcher and
ask them to bone it and save all the bones for me. While that's going on
I pick out some fresh carrots, celery and a big yellow onion; then go
back to get the bird, check out and head home.
In a 4 quart stock pot or slow cooker (crock pot) I make a nice
vegetable stock and add in the chicken bones
using
this recipe. Six hours later I let it cool, skim the fat and fill
six two-cup containers, tucking them away in the freezer. This provides
me all the stock I need through the winter and when the last one is gone
I make some more.
It's much more flavorful and I can control the sodium content. For
that I actually sub in NuSalt (Potassium Chloride) which helps keep my
potassium level where it should be and reduce my sodium intake.
 Shallots:
Looking for an alternative to onions? Shallots are it. Although part of
the same family as the onion, shallots provide a milder flavor and can
be stored up to six months. Because of their smaller size, I find them
easier to work with in the kitchen. I have an entire series of cook
books, Healthy Ways with Cooking, that uses shallots exclusively
instead of onions. Interestingly that series came out through Time Life
in the 1980s.
They work nicely when you're sautéing vegetables or meats. Work them
together with a little garlic before adding them to oil in your pan or
use them together in a meat rub. A favorite of mine is Tom Douglas'
Mustard and Shallot rub he uses for the prime rib recipe in his
Seattle Kitchen cookbook.
When I'm doing burgers at home, I like to slice some shallots up,
coat them in oil, wrap them in foil and roast them on the BBQ while the
meat is cooking. Then I take the little frizzled things and enjoyed
grilled onions on the burger. and speaking of burgers...
Healthy Beefalo: I bumped into this one while shopping at
Central Market in Shoreline. Breeders bred up 37.5% bison and 62.5% cow
to create beefalo. The meat is lower in fat than cow meat and lower in
cholesterol as well. In Washington, the Beefalo Meats cattle
company in Ellensburg grows the herds and sells the meat locally to
markets like Central market in Shoreline, and we find it at Ballard
Market as well. It's lower in cholesterol than any of it's kin. That's
right - lower than bison and certainly lower than cow meat. All the beef is grass fed and no drugs are given, so you're
getting lots of Omega 3s when you enjoy it at a meal. Thought you could
only get that in fish - right? More information is a
www.beefalomeats.com.
I have yet to see it on any menus around town, so I work with it at
home a few times a month. My two favorite ways to enjoy it are getting
the tenderloins and barbequing them on the grill, or making burgers with
ground beefalo. In fact, I've come up with a nice Northwest burger using
beefalo (Ellensburg), Dave's Killer Burger Blue Buns (Portland) and Tillamook
cheddar, then I add some fresh organic lettuce and tomato and I've got
the burger I can't get anywhere else. If you like onions on your
burger, use the shallot grilling technique above, or dice some onion up
and work it into the ground beefalo before you grill it.
 Blood
Oranges: We can all eat locally some of the time, but there's some
things that just don't grow in the Northwest. Blood oranges are one of
them. These red taste treats start showing up on grocer's shelves in the
late fall and are usually history by February, so you gotta get 'em while
you can. Some are grown in Mexico, but California, Texas and Florida all
have crops that make it up this way as well. They make an excellent
choice of juice for cocktails.
On the restaurant side of things, they start showing up in various
cocktails right about now. Saltoro in Broadview makes a nice sparkler
with them and Serafina will be happy to make a screw driver for you with
the vodka of your choice. Over the last few years, the fruit has taken
off bar side and now there are several manufacturers of blood orange
purees which can be had almost anytime of year. This is a more processed
and concentrated version of the fruit itself, but it does make it
possible to enjoy the fruit in a summer drink.
We're also seeing them being used as a demi glaze or reduction on
certain entrées.
Back at home, you could squeeze up 1 cup of blood orange juice in a
press or juicer, add in 1/2 cup of yogurt, 1/2 cup of fresh berries and
1 banana. Just like you would a smoothie, puree it using a regular
blender or hand mixer, then pour it into several large ramekins, freeze
it for six hours or more and you've got a delicious blood orange frozen
yogurt dessert. Last Call: Local pears and persimmons are on
their way out. Your mission this month is to poke around on the web,
find something simple, healthy and delightful to do with them and woo
your family and friends.
Wash your fruits and veggies well and we'll see you next month!
Tom Mehren/Fall 2011 |
