Thursday, May 14, 2009

Flexitarian?

So I came across this term, "flexitarian," in Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food (I finished it last night, so I'm sure I'll stop talking about it soon). Anyway, it was an amusing name to describe how I eat, which is vegetarian with a little bit of meat (usually chicken or fish) thrown in. I'm not sure if this or "semi-vegetarian" is the more accurate description. It was unclear on the Wikipedia webpage. But, anyway, it just goes to show that there are others like me out there. Hello, others. Anyway, I think that my chicken ice cube idea is really key for the flexitarians out there who want to cut time off their dinner prep. So, for my readers (or reader, more accurately--aka, my mom, who's already heard this in exhaustive detail) who want to know how to do it:

Boil a whole chicken or package of chicken leg/quarters/breasts (though breasts don't taste so great on their own) and then pick the meat off the bone. Put a little of the meat (1/2 cup?) back in the broth if you're making soup. Otherwise, freeze the broth in cups in your freezer (or in ice cube trays if you'd rather). Put the meat (small pieces, no broth) in the ice cube trays in your freezer. When frozen, pop out broth into gallon freezer bag (can reuse the same one indefinitely for this) and the chicken into another bag. When I make a stir-fry or tacos or whatever . . . I just throw a few chicken ice cubes in at the end. That frees up time to cut up yet more veggies to put in dinner. This was the only way I could think of to cook as many veggies as I thought I should be using and still have time to deal with meat. I also cook large amounts of beans from dry and freeze them in ice cubes to add to things like soup or pasta. It really helps make healthy cooking a little easier. Oh, I do it for kale, too. Steam it, blend it, freeze it in ice cubes. Then it's all ready to sneak into spaghetti sauce or black beans or whatever.

3 comments:

  1. val-great to have a way to keep updated on life in the davis household! hope all is well. i'll have to consider the time saving tips above. a little easier than pureeing everything that Sneaky Chef recommends! Melissa and Paul ko

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  2. MeredithMay 18, 2009

    Hey - who made that nice kitchen compost jar in the background? Hmmm...

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  3. meredithMay 18, 2009

    By the way, that was my first time EVER posting a comment on ANYTHING. Every. And this is also the first time I ever knowingly read a blog. I've unintentionally read blogs before, i think, though not knowing that was what it was called.

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