More Easy and Good Recipes! Chicken, Pork, and Fries!

It seems that most of what I am doing lately is simply sharing a few recipes. I do plan on sharing so much more, especially about some of the following:

1) our path to getting to this point
2) what kinds of things God has taught us and shown us throughout this
3) specifics of diets (ways of eating) that we love
4) why we are doing this
5) things eating like this addresses and heals and benefits we've seen in ourselves

And I didn't have any pictures of the meals I am about to share recipes of, but I do have a picture of what my next post will be about...ah, the suspense...

But alas for now I just leave you with a few successful recipes that are good no matter how you eat!


This first recipe is from the Garden of Eating cookbook (same as the other stewed chicken with zucchini, mushrooms, and tomatoes recipe).  I loved it - it was very light tasting, and it was a great alternative to our normal roasted chicken and vegetables.  It is almost sweet, a little bright tasting, but still savory, especially because of the onions (mmmm roasted/stewed onions).

Recipe: Stewed (or roasted) chicken with ginger and carrots
Ingredients: 
1 medium onion, cut into thick crescents or 1 inch cubes
3 cups carrots, cut into wedges
3 cups small parsnips, peeled and cut into wedges
1 Tbsp peeled, minced fresh gingerroot
1 tsp minced garlic
1 tsp celtic or himalayan salt
2 Tbsp cooking fat (ghee, butter, lard, chicken fat from broth making)
4 lbs bone-in chicken parts OR 2 lbs boneless chicken parts
1 cup filtered water or homemade meat/bone broth
1 bay leaf
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground pepper
1/2 cup minced fresh parsley

Directions: 
1) Rinse chicken and pat dry, heat oil in stew pot or dutch oven.  Brown chicken in batches and remove to bowl.
2) saute onion in same pot, until tender, about 5-7 min.  Add carrots and parsnips.  Stir, reduce heat to medium and cook 5 i nutes.  Add stock or borth, bay leaf, salt, then ginger, garlic, cinnamon, pepper, chicken, and any juices from bowl.  Gently turn to coat.  Cover, bring to boil, and reduce heat so liquid just simmers.
3) Cook, turning chicken once or twice, until chicken is done, about 35-45 minutes.
4) Remove from heat, add fresh parsley, and serve.

***My notes: I have only made this 2 ways so far, neither of which is in these instructions!  Really, that just sounded like too much work to me, so I tried to simplify.  I am learning how to adjust things to fit our lives around here.  Here are the ways I have cooked it: 
1) Dutch Oven: Roasted a whole chicken with some of the seasonings on it (depending on how much time you have, anywhere from 250-350 in the oven).  Then, about 1.5-2 hrs or so before dinner, I added all the vegetables and broth and remaining seasonings and let it continue cooking (covered!).  We did not have parsnips so we just used carrots and onions, but I wish I had used lots more carrots (didn't have a total of 6 cups like in the recipe).  This was great!
2) Crock Pot: Put all the veggies in the bottom (this time I did 1 large butternut squash, peeled, and cut into big chunks on the bottom, then about 5 or 6 carrots on top of the squash, then 1 huge onion on top of the squash).  Then I poured the broth in, sprinkled about 1/2 the seasonings all over the veggies, placed a couple chicken hindquarters on top and put the rest of the seasonings on the chicken pieces.  We also loved this, and I actually really liked the squash in there, and I am not usually a big fan of boiled/steamed butternut squash.  I loved eating the squash with the onions and chicken.  And the carrots were wonderful again.  
**Really, you can just cook this how it would best work for you and your life!  I bet some raw honey drizzled on your serving would be yummy...
**GAPS notes: this can easily be stage 2 and beyond, and you could make it easier to digest by just cooking the veggies in broth and putting boiled chicken with it, and then progress from there by moist-roasting the meat! 


Variations (from the book): 
replace carrots and parsnips with peeled butternut squash, cut into 2 inch cubes.  Use ginger, garlic, cinnamon, and pepper, OR substitute 1 tbsp paprika, 1/2 tsp dried dill weed, and 1/4 tsp pepper. 


Pork carnitas Recipe
We very much enjoyed this - adults and little boys alike!  We ate with avocado, tomatoes, some yogurt (used like sour cream, drizzled all over mmmm), and an experiment of mine that was a success with the eaters but not enough of a success to post - but I think I found a post-worthy variation I will share later as kind of a substitute for tortillas or wraps.

**GAPS notes: stage 3-4, depending on how you tolerate spices, and if you are doing well, maybe even stage 2!  Just eat with things that are stage-friendly - you could even make this into a soup easily!  

Butternut squash fries
You MUST try this ASAP.  Seriously.  This is one of the best things EVER, ESPECIALLY if you have some beef tallow to use (we just use what comes to the top with our cooled beef broth...and I bet bacon grease would be yummo, too).  SERIOUSLY GO TRY THIS SOON.

**GAPS notes: just don't burn (brown) them too much; avoid eating burnt ends/pieces.  

I could share many more, but I will stop because this is already a long post.  See, eating GAPS is super fun and satisfying!  :-)