Passionate Homemaking

With the holidays just around the corner, we cannot miss out on a large pot of mashed potatoes! They are truly delicious when topped with gravy or simply eaten on their own. Mashed potatoes are a huge hit for our family, and we serve them with roast chicken, beef burgundy, and many other meat dishes. I find most mashed potatoes to be dry and flavorless…but not when prepared with these simple ingredients! Don’t skimp on the butter – it makes a world of difference!

8 large yukon gold potatoes (yukon gold make the most golden delicious mashed potatoes)
1 cup potato water (reserved from cooking liquid – can be replaced with chicken broth or cream for even more flavor!)
1/4 cup mayonnaise (can use cream cheese or sour cream, as desired)
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/3 cup butter (or 5-6 Tablespoons)
1 teaspoon salt
dash of pepper

Directions:

1. Peel the potatoes and cut into quarters. Place in a large pot and fill with water just until the potatoes are covered. Cover and bring to a boil. When boiling, remove lid and allow to cook for about 35-40 minutes, until potatoes are easy to prick with a fork due to softness and falling apart. Allow to cool slightly.
2. Carefully drain the majority of the water, reserving approximately 1 cup. Place all the potatoes and reserved 1 cup of the potato water in a mixer. Turn the mixer on and blend until all the potatoes are nicely mashed.
3. Add mayonnaise, minced garlic, butter and salt. Continue to mix until thoroughly combined. Season with additional salt and pepper as needed. Add more liquids if necessary to make a creamy consistency.

Keep warm till ready to serve! Yum!

Yield: 6 servings.

Every year our family purchases 12 lovely pastured chickens from a local farm. Chickens that have enjoyed the great outdoors to their hearts content makes the most nutritious bird. Only 12 chickens? Yes, I use one chicken each month and make it stretch for at least four or more meals for our family of four. It is a great frugal way to get the most value and nutrition by purchasing them whole. You get all bones which make fabulous broth! Here I am today to share our method of preparing multiple meals from one chicken at one time.

Roasted Chicken

The first step is to thaw the whole chicken and prepare it into a scrumptious roast while a batch of mashed potatoes, gravy, and a side salad!

Ingredients:

1 large chicken (4-6 pounds)
2 Tablespoons softened butter or coconut oil
2 Tablespoons melted butter, coconut oil, or olive oil
2-3 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon parsley, oregano, or basil (or combination)
sea salt and pepper
Rosemary

Directions:

1. Wash and pat dry the exterior and interior of your chicken. Remove any giblets that may be in the cavity and set aside for your broth.

2. Combine the 2 Tablespoon butter with garlic and parsley/oregano/basil seasonings. Carefully peel back the skin at the back of the neck and rub the butter seasoning mix all around the meat, between the skin and meat. This will give the meat a wonderful moist texture. You can skip this step if you are in a hurry and the meat will still be fabulous with just the outside oil and seasoning!

3. Place chicken in a roasting pan, dutch/french oven, or any oven safe pan you may have. Preferably the more fitted the container the better for keeping all the juices together. Place the chicken breast side down into the pan.

4. Cover chicken with half the melted butter/oil and season with salt, pepper, and rosemary as desired.

5. Place uncovered in a 350 degree oven for 1 hour.

6. After 1 hour, rotate the chicken and sprinkle on the remaining butter/oil and season as desired and return to oven for an additional 1 hour.

7. Chicken is done when the legs pull away from the body of the chicken and if you cut in between the leg and body and the juice runs clear.

8. Allow to sit for 5-10 minutes before slicing and serving.

We slice up this chicken and serve with this yummy gravy:

Chicken drippings
1 Tablespoon arrowroot powder
1/2 cup dry white wine
salt and pepper to taste

1. Combine all ingredients in a small saucepan over medium heat and whisk together till smooth and thickened. Season to taste.

We don’t eat a lot of meat at any given meal, but make it stretch further by eating more vegetables. As you can see in the photo, I serve the roast chicken over mashed potatoes with a side of broccoli and squash. This really helps to get the most amount of meals from one chicken.

After we have this fabulous chicken for dinner, I place the entirety of the remaining chicken in the fridge overnight. In the morning I prepare the following two dishes at once, because it saves time and energy. Sometime the next day, de-bone the chicken and remove all the chicken meat and place in a separate bowl. Set aside two cups of meat for Chicken & Dumplings, and two cups of meat for Chicken Curry or another dish of your choice. These can be placed in a half gallon jar in the fridge till ready for use. Any additional meat is used for chicken sandwiches to send with hubby for lunches.

Chicken Stock

Bones from 1 whole chicken
Gizzards or feet (optional)
1/2 cup white vinegar
12-16 cups filtered water
1/2 onion, chopped in half
2-4 carrot peelings
2 celery sticks and tops
1 bunch parsley (or 1 Tablespoon or so dried parsley)

Homemade chicken stock is full of healing properties.

1. Place all the bones in a large stock pot. Leave a small portion of the chicken on the bone if you desire to make a chicken soup. Add the reserved giblets, chicken feet, or any additional bones you may have reserved.

2. Fill the pot with approximately 12-16 cups of filtered water.

3. Add white vinegar and allow the mixture to sit for 30 minutes. Vinegar is necessary to draw out the minerals, particularly calcium, magnesium and potassium, into the broth. During this time, you want to prepare your vegetable additions.

4. You can use any older looking vegetables, carrot peels, onion peels, celery tops, potato peels, etc. I love making stock because nothing goes to waste! Many times I will store a bag of peelings in the freezer from other dishes that can be thrown in for the stock.  I will actually peel my ingredients for my next recipe, a double batch of Chicken & Dumplings, and use the peelings for my stock. I use approximately 4 carrot peelings, 1/2 onion (cut into wedges), 2 celery tops and 1 celery stalk cut in half, and 2 potato peelings. There is no need for perfection here. I use what I have on hand and it all goes in.

5. After adding the vegetables, bring the pot to a boil and then reduce the heat to a simmer and let it cook for 12-24 hours.

6. About 10 minutes before finishing the stock, add 1 bunch of parsley.

7. After it has cooked, cool completely. Then drain the broth from the vegetables and bones. I will discard the vegetables and remove any additional meat on the bones for a chicken soup or other purpose before discarding the bones. I will freeze half of the stock by placing in a large gallon size freezer bag. This will be used for soup for another meal.

The remaining stock I will use for soup within the week – Garden Chowder or Zuppa Tuscana are regular delicious soups at our house!

Chicken & Dumplings

In the picture above, you see all the chopped veggies that I prepare for my Chicken & Dumplings dish. I have just peeled them all for my stock and use the remaining vegetable chopped nicely for this dish. I use the reserved two cups of chopped chicken for this recipe. I can then prepare this right away or cover and place in fridge for the evening meal. I can easily make a double batch of Chicken & Dumplings in two separate 8 x 8 pans and freeze one for another busy day.

Chicken Curry

With the additional 2 cups of reserved chopped chicken meat, I will often make Chicken Curry - another delicious and nutritious meal. Another favorite would be Chicken Enchiladas that could also be made with this meat.

Finally, any remaining meat makes some fabulous lunches for my husband throughout the week. Roasted chicken sandwiches with mayo, dijon mustard, cheese, pickles, lettuce and any other toppings make a full satisfying sandwich!

So my whole chicken has made 1 roast, 1 batch of chicken stock (enough for at least 2 soups), 2 main dishes, and enough for a few additional chicken sandwiches for lunch! I would say we used everything possible on that chicken!

How do you use your chicken?

One of the greatest pleasures I receive out of homemaking is the beautiful privilege we have to always be learning something new. As wives and mothers, our passion is to serve our families to the best of our abilities as we strive to provide a nourishing home environment for them. Learning new things about health, nutrition, organization, homemaking, and everything in between helps maintain the joy in our work. I have been learning all about sourdough over the last two months, and it has been delightful. I had so many misconceptions of the process – from believing it to always result in sour products, to the extended duration to prepare home baked sourdough goodies in this manner (learn more about sourdough myths here). I was utterly and completely wrong.

Today I made a dozen sourdough English muffins, a spice cake, and crackers all within 30 minutes. And it took 10 minutes to mix up the sourdough starter and flour the night before to let the ingredients sour overnight.

Sourdough is very simple. You almost cannot go wrong with it. And it has wonderful benefits for our bodies – making our grains more digestible by breaking down gluten, and neutralizing phytic acid and enzyme inhibitors. Sourdough is a process that is detailed throughout Scripture before the invention of commercial yeast – so the use of sourdough is a work of making organisms come alive from flour and water. It’s incredibly exciting to watch.

Making Your Own Sourdough Starter

To start, I chose the simple process of purchasing a sourdough starter from Cultures for Health (just $11.99). You can make your own, but the results can be a mix of success and failure. Beginning with a starter will assure greater success and speeds up the process tremendously. It takes one week to establish a lively active starter. Cultures for Health offers many different sourdough starters – from rye flour, to white flour, to the gluten free brown rice starter.

Wardeh at Gnowfglins offers a spectacular Sourdough eCourse that has been tremendously helpful in learning the process of sourdough…but the main benefit is the wealth of recipes she has included for simple sourdough delicacies – bread, English muffins, donuts, tortillas, cakes, etc. The Sourdough eCourse does offer all the practical steps for establishing your own sourdough starter as well.

I found success in feeding my starter every 12 hours or twice a day to get it established (morning and night). I used a glass quart size jar. As the jar would get full, I would scoop some out and place it down the disposal. This is important for good abundant yeast development. I worked on it for about two weeks (as I was out of town for part of this time and just wanted to get a good solid start) before sticking it in the fridge. It was nice and bubbly. At times I fed it 1/2 cup water and 1/2 cup whole wheat flour, and other times I fed it 1/4 cup water and 3/8 cup flour. There are different recommendations for the feeding of your starter, but either way it worked just fine. It was flexible. If I missed a feeding, I would add more flour to water to sweeten it a bit. And you can use practically any assortment of flours – wheat, spelt, kamut, etc. to feed your starter.

How to Use Sourdough?

1. Once it was established, I placed it in the fridge and feed it once a week. I found Wardeh’s idea of doing a weekly baking time to be the easiest manner of continuing to nurture my starter but also provide some yummy simple pastries for our family.

2. I pull out my starter in the morning, give it a feeding (normally 1/2 cup each of water and flour or up to 3 times the amount of starter to make larger batches of baked goods), and then let it sit covered with a cloth napkin for the day. You will want to pour off the black liquid (also called the cooch) at the top of your starter for a less sour taste when you feed it.

3. In the early evening, after sitting for 8 hours, I mix up a batch of English muffin, and one or two other recipes. This week it was spice cake and crackers! I then cover up the individual mixtures with a cloth napkin, label them (so to avoid confusion), and let them sit at room temperature overnight.

4. In the morning, after 12 hours or so, I add the remaining ingredients and bake! I love it! Once I have made my goodies, I just put the remaining sourdough starter in the fridge (always preserving 1 cup for next time!). Sticking to a 12 hour souring time assures a less sour final product. In fact, with this routine, I found there was no sourness to worry about! Everything just tasted yummy and light.

I also love how you don’t have to make a batch of sourdough items every week. If you have a busy week, simply feed the starter (1/2 and 1/2), let it sit out for a few hours, and then put it back in the fridge until you have more energy to put it to use.

Beyond the health benefits, with the exception of sourdough bread, most sourdough recipes requires no additional rising! The overnight fermenting is all the rising you need. I made sourdough cinnamon rolls and I just rolled them out, layered on the fillings, rolled them back up and baked immediately. And your products expand as they bake, keeping them light, fluffy, and oh so yummy! Traditional whole wheat products will be more dense than white flour, but sourdough whole wheat products are a night and day difference.

The Sourdough eCourse also offers video tutorials, helpful hints, and twenty different recipes! Wardeh offers several different membership plan options to make the eCourse accessible for all budgets and time schedules.

If you are interested in starting a new healthy adventure, definitely check out sourdough and the wonderful helpful resources through the Sourdough eCourse!

To conclude, I wanted to share with you one of the easy recipes offered in this course: Sourdough English Muffins (pictured at the top of this post). This recipe is not only easy, but scrumptious! It is delicious toasted with butter and jam, and as a bun for salmon melts, hamburgers, or various sandwiches. I love how it can serve so many purposes. Erin, from Alaska, compiled this recipe and shares it on the Sourdough eCourse.

Erin’s Sourdough English Muffins

• 1/2 cup sourdough starter (thick or thin) – fed within the last 12 hours
• 1 cup liquid (milk, fermented dairy, coconut milk…) – I have used raw milk, kefir, and coconut milk with equal success!
• 2 cups whole wheat flour or any flour combination (and more if needed) – I found I had to use 2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour consistently
• 1 tablespoon raw honey
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda

Directions:

1. Combine your sourdough starter, liquid, and flour in a medium size mixing bowl. Gently combine until all ingredients are incorporated.
2. If mixture is still significantly sticky, add more flour by 1/4 cup till you get a get a moist dough that combines together well into a ball. You will have good results whether it is more wet or dry. Both work well. The flour will absorb the liquids as it ferments, so less is more.
3. Cover bowl with a cloth napkin or plate and allow it to sit at room temperature for 12-24 hours. (More time will make them more sour in taste).
4. After the souring process is complete, remove lid and add honey, salt, and baking soda, and kneed into the dough till well combined.
5. Transfer to your counter-top, and cut the dough into eight equal balls. Dough may be wet and sticky, but it is fine.
6. Turn on your stovetop grill to medium heat. In the meantime you can shape each ball into a flat muffin (about 1 inch tall and 3 inch wide). I prefer actually doing this on the grill top to avoid them sticking to the counter-top.
7. Once the grill is heated, transfer balls to the grill and spread them out with the fingers into round flat English muffins. They will puff up significantly as they cook. You may have to adjust the temperature if they begin cooking too fast.
8. Cook for about 5 minutes on each side, or until the bottom is nicely brown and the sides are no longer sticky. Cool and serve!

There you have it…my sourdough routine and the yummy English muffins – a great recipe to start with!

Learn something new today, dear sister. Whatever it might be. This is a way that we beautifully reflect the creative nature of our Creator.