Cookaholics Bulletin Board

We inventoried a week or two ago. Amazing number of packages of chicken thighs (they're so convenient at Costco!). We're eating a lot of chicken lately.

Those chicken thigh packages do sneak up on you. I like to put them in the slow cooker with ketchup, maple syrup,w-sauce, mustard, s&p for a pseudo pulled chicken at niight. My favourite butcher sells boneless/skinless legs in 11 pound bags for a great price, so I've been buying those instead of the thighs.
Nancy, I have a turkey too, am going to do that on our first long weekend on the bbq.

Chicken and Chickpea Tagine

2 Teaspoons Olive Oil
8 Bone-in Chicken Thighs [skin and visible fat removed]
2 Onions diced
1 Tablespoon Ground Cumin
1 Teaspoon saffron threads, crumbled,
4 Cinnamon sticks [Ceyon]
1-½ pounds sweet potatoes, peeled and diced
2 14-ounce cans diced tomatoes, 1drained
2 14-ounce cans chickpeas, drained an rinsed
1cup fresh O.J.
¼ cup honey
1-½ cups pitted prunes [or dried plums ]
Harissa [Hot pepper paste] to taste (optional)

1. In a 6 to 8 quart Dutch oven, heat 1t. Oil over medium high heat. Season chicken with salt and pepper, add to the pot and brown on all sides, 6 to 8 minutes. Remove the chicken from the pan and set aside.

2. Wipe any fat from the pot. Add remaining teaspoon of oil and onions and cooked until softened, about five minutes. Add cumin, saffron, and cinnamon sticks; cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Stir in sweet potatoes, chickpeas, orange juice and honey: bring to a simmer

3. Return the chicken pieces to the pot, pressing them into the vegetables. Return to a simmer. Simmer on stovetop for 30 minutes or braise in the oven for about 1 hour at 300 degrees.
This is a great spot to stop and refrigerate if you are making this dish ahead.

3.Add prunes, and continue to simmer until chicken is very tender, about 10 minutes more. Season with salt, pepper, and harissa or other hot pepper sauce or paste to taste

Notes:
Tomatoes were not drained. Extra liquid not a problem. 1 can of chick peas is sufficient for our taste.

I'm going to have to do an inventory...work has been crazy busy, so many, many things have been getting dropped...but in a sad attempt to get organized I prepped egg mcmuffins for the freezer today, only to discover that there is no room in there and I have literally no idea what's in there. Hopefully the muffins turn out ok...I assembled them I. Their entirety and my plan is to nuke them whole.

As my son would say, I just had an epic fail in my freezer. For some reason I thought the pork loin I had in there was a recent purchase, but when I pulled it out to thaw for dinner the date on it said Feb 6/08. It looked fine, cryovac'd and not freezer burnt looking at all, but I opted for the side of caution and tossed the $6.22 loin into the trash. Will serve our friends wings (buffalo style fried) and whole chicken instead. Still from the freezer but from this decade!

Jean,

Huh. I've eaten five-year-old stuff from the freezer before. Mind you, not pork.

Fuzzy, I know, me too. But there's no way that we could eat it on our own and I couldn't take the chance. Live and learn, I must have kept pulling newer purchases out and ignoring that one.

Jean, I hear you. I'll feed myself (and sometimes poor DH) stuff that I think might be questionable, but I'd never take the chance with guests.

I had something just like that (well, maybe not THAT old ) - 2 loins in cryovac, that I bought because I couldn't pass up 99 cents/lb for it, then it was in there for about 2+ years. I made some sausage with it, along with fat trimmings from many things I saved for sausage - sweet Italian, chorizo, and some home smoked kielbasa, which was foodsavered, then it all (almost...my helper took a bunch home) went back in the freezer! LOL It's still good to this day, about 8 months after the sausage was made.

And now with all that I bought some really cheap spareribs ($1.19/lb) from a grand opening of a Bottom Dollar store in my town, again, because I couldn't pass it up! It was all frozen, and in cryovac, so that went in the freezer.

My problem with this is that it is only me here (of course, some frequent visitors for food, which I don't mind), and I eat so much out of my garden, and eat meat so seldom, yet I can't pass up these sales!

I've been much better with my freezer however did have some freezer burned shrimp in there due to son #1 not closing the freezer all the way and the shrimp on top thawed a bit and then must have refroze.
The lovely thing is I have no more ginourmous proteins in the freezer and now only have things that are in sizes my family can consume. I did buy a whole beef tenderloin a few weeks back and portioned it into three 1.5-2 pound roasts and a pound of beef stir fry meat.