One downside to chicken is its cholesterol content.  A plain cup of diced chicken (about 5 ounces) contains just over a third of the daily recommended cholesterol input.  If your doctor prescribes a “heart healthy” diet, then keep the portion size small.

A Chicken in YOUR backyard!

10. Start by removing the skin – that is where the calories are.  Or simply buy boneless and skinless white meat for convenience.

9. Extreme high calories in a fast food chicken sandwich – Crispy FlameThrower Chicken Sandwich from Dairy Queen weighing in at 860 calories.

8. Calorie conscious fast food chicken sandwich – Chargrilled Chicken Sandwich from Chick-Fil-A – only 260 calories

7. COLOR OF SKIN – From FoodReference.com: “Chicken skin color varies from cream-colored to yellow. Skin color is a result of the type of feed eaten by the chicken, not a measure of nutritional value, flavor, tenderness or fat content. Color preferences vary in different sections of the country, so growers use the type of feed which produces the desired color.” http://www.foodreference.com/html/fchicken.html

6. White meat vs. dark meat – which wins?  That depends: there are slightly fewer calories in white meat but dark wins handily when it comes to iron, B vitamins and other nutrients.

5. Jerk Chicken – The term jerk refers to heavily spiced and often spicy hot seasonings which are dry rubbed or wet marinated.  Jerk recipes have their origins in Jamaica and the Carribean in general as a way of preserving meat similar to “jerky” or dried meat.  See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamaican_jerk_spice for more information.

4. You are probably aware that eating raw or partially cooked chicken is dangerous because of salmonella. Chicken must always be cooked thoroughly to 167° F  (75° C) as measured using a meat thermometer pierced into the center of the meat.

3. Chicken bones can be boiled with vegetables and spices to make chicken stock and are a great starting point for flavorful chicken soup.

2. Chickens that are raised specifically for meat are called broilers.

1. Capons are castrated male chickens.  They were once commonly available in the US, but are hard to find today.  Chefs prefer them for their fattier, tastier meat.

Cooking Light Cook’s Essential Recipe Collection – 58 recipes for healthy, low fat meals.  Easily obtained for less than $10.
Betty Crocker’s Best Chicken Cookbook – A popular classic, need we say more? Inexpensive, too.

There are over 60 chicken breeds.  An amazing compendium of detail on each breed, complete with information on egg color, origins, behavior, etc. , is maintained by John Henderson of Ithaca College.

There’s a huge renewed interest in keeping backyard birds – you don’t need much room at all and it’s easy.  Witness the incredible following on the BackYardChickens.com web site. 

Raising Chickens

Are you in an urban environment?  Check out http://www.urbanchickens.org for lots of good information and advice.

Chickens not legal in your neighborhood?  Lots of people are pressuring their local government to allow small backyard flocks.  You’ll find support and advice on sites like http://urbanchickenunderground.blogspot.com/

Just how popular is this trend??  If Martha Stewart is in on the game, then it must be big time.  She recently had a show on backyard chickens – as reported on urbanchickens.net

Start at your local hardware or feed store (in the springtime) or shop online at places like Murray McMurray or My Pet Chicken http://www.mypetchicken.com McMurray has a minimum order requirement of 25 while MPC has the advantage of a low minimum order of just 3.

How to Boil Water.

How to Boil Water caught my eye at my local bookstore. I liked the attractive bright cover full of pictures of yummy food and the title was perfect in it’s simplicity so I picked it up just to have a look. Sigh… so many of my purchases start this way.

How to Boil Water is a resource book for a new cook or an old cook who didn’t pay much attention in Home Economics class. There is a Victor Borge sketch about a famous violinist who never received his first mail-order violin lesson because it went to Victor. So the violinist was unable to do a basic scrape of the bow across strings because of this missing lesson while being able to play complicated classical pieces that was learned in subsequent lessons. This book will teach you to scrape the bow or bowl as it where.

You will find plenty of delicious, cheap and easy recipes and they literally do teach you how to boil water and then take you from toast to Thanksgiving. The accompanying pictures are understandable and informative. There is an incredibly useful tips with each recipe. The tips are in the categories of shopsmart, cook’s notes, don’t panic, a side of history, wisdom, make it your own, and upgrades. In all they say there are over 1000 recipes, tips and photos spread across 250 pages.

There is a section on how to set up a kitchen. They list the must-haves, the if-you-like-to-bakes and the nice-extras. And they don’t just list them they show you line drawings so you can recognize them. They explain the strategies behind shopping and storage, how to set up a pantry, game plans for safety, where to store fruit to last the longest, etc. The list just goes on.

“The Mechanics of Soup – or how to clean out your vegetable drawer in an hour and have something to show for it” pages are worth the price of the book, which is 20 bucks or less. Who knew there was an order to putting stuff in the pot? There is: Aromatics, Main Ingredient, Liquid, Thickeners and Finishers. And then there is the age-old question, “To Puree or Not To Puree.”

What finally sold me on How to Boil Water was the recipe for Aglio Et Olio (spaghetti with olive oil and garlic). I used to sling Rigatoni in a fancy Italian restaurant and the cooks would make this for me with roasted vegetables for dinner. I loved it but never could duplicate it.

How to Boil Water gave me the recipe plus upgrades such as wilting spinach in the oil before adding the spaghetti – huge yum. It gave me information about garlic such as store at room temperature in a dark place and it will last a long time. My garlic was in the fridge. The shopsmart section explained Parmesan cheese and lesser costing alternatives… all information I didn’t know.

If you have a child (9 to 99) that is interesting in cooking or you want to gain confidence in your own cooking then I highly recommend this book.

And if you need a gift for a young adult then pair How to Boil Water up with Eat This Not That! Supermarket Survival Guide and you will give them something really useful… the ability to feed themselves and maybe you someday.

How to Boil Water: food network kitchens

“Eat This, Not That!”is crafted to specifically target belly fat – by filling you with smart, healthy choices that rev up your resting metabolism and help you burn away flab all day, every day, even when you sleep!

That is a pretty darn big claim to make. But if you had seen the before and after of John then you would believe it, the pounds just dropped off of the guy. Now admittedly he is a guy and it is easier for them to loose weight and he did start a bit of exercising but still the change was remarkable.

This is another small book measuring 5.5 x 5.5 inches. It fits very nicely into your glove compartment or purse. It is a little over 300 pages and divided into 8 chapters. The chapters are:

• 8 Foods You Should Eat Every Day > Plus 20 to avoid at all costs
• At Your Favorite Restaurants
• EAT THIS, NOT THAT! Menu Decoder
• On Holidays and Special Occasions
• At the Supermarket
• Drink This, Not That
• What to Eat When… You’re Tired, Stressed, or in the Mood
• EAT THIS, NOT THAT! for Kids

This book is cover to cover information. The book is highly illustrated and the layout of information is easy to understand that a kid or a husband could do it. I am forty-mumble-mumble and I have to start paying attention to what I eat if I want to stay healthy. I am not as resilient as I use to be. It’s tough getting old.

I have to be giving this book back to John but I will be buying my own copy.