Hearty Chicken Stew

I make this hearty, warming stew at least once or twice a winter. As I mentioned in the stock post, this dish starts by roasting a chicken the previous night, and then making stock from it. It's a great exercise in frugality! My method for the stock is described here. The ingredients can be varied to suit your tastes and what is on hand, below is what I used in the most recent iteration of the stew.

1 medium onion, chopped
3 carrots, chopped
3 cloves garlic
2 large or 3 to 4 medium potatoes, chopped
2 handfuls green beans, trimmed, cut in 1/2
two handfuls of greens, finely chopped (I used 2 chard leaves),
appx 3 cups cooked chicken, cut or shred into bit sized pieces (see stock recipe for process)
15 ozs cooked kidney beans (I like to cook the dried beans in advance, keeping in the frugal spirit)
optional: a bit of bacon or pancetta
7 cups stock
1 to 2 tbsp olive oil
salt & pepper to taste

Heat the olive oil on medium in large pot. Add the onion, saute until it begins to soften, about 5 minutes. Add the carrots and garlic, saute another 5 minutes. Stir in the potatoes, heat for a few minutes, then add the stock. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a steady simmer, around medium heat. Let it simmer until the potatoes start to soften a bit, about 15 minutes. Add the chicken, green beans, and kidney beans simmer gently for another 20 minutes or so. Stir in the greens, cook until they have wilted. Length of time will depend on the kind of green you use; about 5 to 10 minutes. Add salt & pepper to taste, I tend to be generous with the pepper on this one.

If you want to add the optional bacon or pancetta, start the stew by browning the meat in the pot until crispy. Remove the bacon and set it aside, wipe the excess grease (but leave a bit for flavor!). Add the bacon back in at the end.

Wine: This recipe has been sitting in my queue for a bit, so I don't recall what I served with this most recently. But generally a rustic dish like this calls for a wine with similar characteristics. A red from France's Languedoc region comes to mind.

Chicken Stew, Step 1: The Stock

Ok, this post only gets you halfway to the tasty & healthy looking stew above. I did take a few photos while making the stock. I really think you're more likely to make it seeing the end product rather than the process photos. So stay tuned for part 2 for the stew recipe; meanwhile, being able to turn leftovers from roast chicken into stock is a frugal kitchen essential.

The starting point for this stock is roasting a chicken the night before. I used this recipe, which has a nice little sauce that created some extra I put into the sauce. But use your favorite roast chicken recipe; just try to get one that's big enough that you'll have some leftover. I started with one 4.25 lbs for 3, and the yielded just the right amount of leftovers.

When you've finished your meal on night 1, it's time to get to work on the stock. Pick as much chicken meat from the bone as you can without driving yourself batty (having a bit still on there just adds flavor). Set that meat aside in a container for the next night. Discard as much skin as you can without troubling yourself. Some skin left for flavor is fine, but healthwise, it is best to dispatch with much of the skin.

Place the remaining chicken carcass, with bits of the meat and skin left, into a large pot. If you roasted the chicken with flavorful items like lemon and thyme, as called for in the recipe I followed; go ahead and leave that in for more flavor. In fact, if you don't have something like that in the original recipe, adding something you have on hand such as a few thyme or rosemary sprigs is a good idea. I poured the remaining jus from the roast chicken recipe into the pot as well for some extra taste.

If you're a night owl, you can do the next step after dinner. Not me! I put the pot with the chicken bones into the fridge and continue the next day. The stock is really pretty easy from here. Just fill the pot up with enough water to just cover the carcass (probably about 10 cups or so) and bring to a boil. Then let it simmer, stirring  occasionally, for a good 3 to 4 hours.

After you've simmered it enough, set a another pan or a bowl in the sink, and set a colander inside the pan (if you have one with a finer mesh, you'll get less bits and pieces in your stock. Pour the pan of liquid and chicken into the pan, with the colander catching the chicken bones, meat, etc. Set the liquid aside to cool a bit before covering and putting it in the fridge.

Let the chicken cool a bit, then pick through what remains in the colander for bits of meat that you can add to the chicken you'd previously pulled off. When you're satisfied with that you have gotten what you can, discard the remaining bones and put the chicken you are using into the fridge. I usually have stock to make my chicken stew and to freeze some for later use. Initially I put it into the fridge to be ready for immediate use, then freeze what I don't use right away.

WBW 73: A Zin Can Still Spark

When people ask how I started getting interested in wine, I always go back to that trip to Ravenswood. Now, my interest was already swirling...a few years out of college, I'd gotten some cooking basics down and was starting to get a bit more adventurous.  Sampling different wines went along with with learning to cook. But getting out to California wine country really amped up my interest. Jodi and I managed to get out to California several years in a row for vacation, enjoying nice long hikes, driving along the coast and through vineyards. Sampling wines from the area was part of the experience.

A visit to Ravenswood stands out. It was a weekday in late November, and we were the only ones in the tasting room for a stretch. The server was very passionate about wine, and enjoyed giving background on the grapes were were sampling, how where they were grown, their flavor profiles, etc. Though Ravenswood is more known for Zinfandel, I especially remember tasting and enjoying a Gewurztraminer that day, a nice bit of sweet and spice.


For a stretch after that visit, Ravenswood Zinfandel was my go to wine. I'd get the Vintners Blend for everyday drinking and sometimes splurge on one of their pricier zins. In my earlier days of blogging, I wrote about sampling I did of their zins at various price points. I did branch out and start enjoying other zins too; I liked its fruitiness, and it tends to go well with meats I make that often have a bit of spice in the preparation.

I've come a long way since those Ravenswood days, and have developed a pretty adventurous palate. I enjoy sampling a wide range of what the wine world has to offer; and lean toward the food friendly wines of France and Italy.

I still will grab a bottle of zin from time to time, but the "spark" theme gave me a chance to sample some zin again with a more critical perspective. At first I thought I'd re-sample Ravenswood, but they didn't have it at nearby shops. Instead, I decided to do a variation on the theme, and look for another California zin. Lori Schaefer, co-owner of Pairings Wine and Food, suggested the 2010 Hartford Russian River Valley Old Vine Zinfandel, and I was glad she did!

I poured a bit to be able to focus on tasting before I got into my full-fledged cooking mode. Deep, deep red color in the glass. Violet on the nose (could almost imagine hiking somewhere in Northern California). First taste I got raspberry, with a touch of chocolate and hint of pepper. Tasting a bit more: very refined, great mouthfeel. "It got juicier", I noted. Opened up nicely and was a great match for the Bee Bim Bop I'd made. The pairing was a good reminder that Zin can be a nice match for a zesty beef preparation.

Granted, there is plenty of unremarkable zin out there that prompts one to go for other varietals. But this one demonstrates that a well-done zin can be a great wine. Low yields from some of the oldest zinfandel vines in California gave the Hartford zin plenty of character. It also conjured up good memories of our travel in wine country; as we enjoyed staying by the Russian River a few times. This WBW assignment featured a combination of factors sure to spark a passion for wine--a flavorful yet nuanced wine that enhanced the enjoyment of the meal and evoked powerful memories of the place it came from.

Thanks to the Corkdork for hosting Wine Blogging Wednesday--WBW #73!

Friday Fridge Find Pasta

You may see a trend emerging if you've been following. Trying to up my frugal game in the kitchen. I'm inclined in this direction anyway, but the combo of reading this article about how 40% of food produced in America gets wasted, and trying to trim our budget a bit, has really got me going. I've gotten pretty good at concocting something tasty out of random items on hand, and figure that's something worth sharing.

The first veggie drawer didn't have too much to offer, just the remnants of a bag of baby spinach. The next drawer held a bit more promise: a decent amount of kale, an onion and some carrots. Also had a bit of leftover spinach salad. Looked like the makings of another pasta dish! Now, I'm not going to go write up a list of ingredients here; it's really about the process...you can modify the basic concept based on what you have.

1) Caramelize onion Started out by putting thinly sliced onion in a big pot with a bit of olive oil. Got it nice and hot on medium, and cooked until it was good and soft, add some minced garlic (3 cloves) and about 1/4 of a red bell pepper, diced. Your takeway: Start by sauteeing something in the onion family to give it a good flavor base...onion, garlic, shallot all work. Get the water going for the pasta as you start to cook the onion.

2) Braise kale: Now kale is a sturdy green, packed with nutrients, that needs to be cooked well to enjoy (or a bit chopped fine added to salad--but that's another post). Braising is a good way to go. Once that onion (or whatever else you have for step 1) is soft, add the chopped kale along with a cooking liquid and a touch of salt. I used some white wine, about 1/3 of a cup (more frugality--day 3 of the same bottle being opened, was more fit for cooking than drinking). A more modest amount of a vinegar could work, or perhaps some stock. But the wine worked very nicely. Stir everything to combine, then simmer, covered, for at least 10 minutes. Add the pasta (10 to 12 ozs of a short shape) to cook around the same time you start the kale.

3) Finish it up: Your pasta should be about done cooking around the same time the kale is ready. Beans are a nice way to add substance to the dish. I used cannelini, they absorbed the flavors nicely. Add the precooked beans to the kale pot and stir well to combine. After a couple minutes, I stirred in the spinach I had on hand, barely cooking it. Then it's ready to toss with the pasta, and of course, plenty of cheese and about a tbsp of extra olive oil. I used about 1/3 cup pecorino romano. I finished it with 1 tsp of high quality balsamic vinegar, a nice touch. Voila! Dinner is served. It was very tasty; I think the key to the flavor was the onions, which  had been caramelized enough to give them sweetness. They also absorbed the cooking wine to pack some extra taste.

Wine pairing: Served this with the  Saint-Peyre Picpoul-De-Pinet from the Languedoc region in France. Great value ($10), food-friendly. Medium-bodied, minerality, bit of citrus. Went very well with the dish.