This chicken-noodle soup dinner was accompanied by totally awesome Whole Wheat Buttermilk Cheese Biscuits from 100 Days of Real Food, and a very fresh salad made with local greenhouse lettuce and (of course) local beets.  All in all it was the kind of meal that made me remember my childhood, full of simple flavors, hearty textures, and savoury goodness.

Yes, that’s a Maple Leaf Biscuit!

Chicken Noodle Soup

I’m not going to post a recipe because basically I just winged it (no chicken pun intended)….  I thawed the broth, tossed in several chopped carrots, a stalk of chopped celery, and when it was simmering added a ½ pound of local egg noodles.  The soup was entirely local except the stalk of celery.  The soup turned out the way it was supposed to, although it probably had more noodles than it needed.

Whole Wheat Buttermilk Cheese Biscuits

My assistant chose the shapes, and we were both pleased with the results.

These were super easy to make and I used 100 Days of Real Food’s recipe but added a “rest” to the dough of 1 hour to help the whole wheat soften and to bring out some of the natural sweetness of the flour.  I also did ¾ of the recipe so I’ve included my quantities in this ever-so-slightly modified version:

Ingredients:

• 1 ½ cup whole wheat flour (I used Oak Manor’s Hard Sifted Whole Wheat)
• 3 tsp. baking powder
• ¼ tsp. salt
• ¼ cup butter, chilled
• A generous ½ cup grated cheese (I used white cheddar from Pine River)
• ¾ cup buttermilk

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.  Measure the flour, baking powder, and salt and mix together in a bowl.  Grate the butter, that’s right, grate it!  I grab a full stick (as in ¼ lb) and grate it like cheese until I’m halfway through, that’s ¼ cup, and it’s okay to use a little less, I don’t think I used the full ½ stick.  Stir the grated butter into the flour mixture until it’s decently incorporated.

Mix in the grated cheese and finally add the buttermilk.  Knead the mixture for long enough to mix all the ingredients together and then stop.  The original recipe said to knead 8-10 times but I probably did a bit more and they turned out great!  Allow the dough to sit for as long as you have (somewhere from 1-4 hours).

After the rest, roll out the dough to a thickness of about ¾ inch and cut the biscuits.  Use fun cookie cutters if you have them – have your child or dog help you cut them out!  Grease a cookie sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes.  If you have leftovers (which is unlikely if you have 3+ people, reheat them briefly in a [toaster] oven and they will still be great.

Salad

• 1 head of lettuce (or more or less depending on your needs)
• ½ cup candied nuts (I used walnuts… from California L )
• 3 medium sized beets, sliced into wedges
• 1 oz. crumbled goat cheese
• Maple vinaigrette dressing (2 Tb. oil, 1 Tb. cider vinegar, 1 Tb. yogurt, 1 Tb. maple syrup, salt and pepper)

Cook the beets for a long time in water, like seriously, a really long time, at least 30 minutes, and 40 minutes is a good idea.  Cook them until the water looks like a rich red wine and the beets and soft.  Then briefly fry them in butter if you like that sort of flavour…  Toss everything together in as pretty of a fashion as you can (salad should be pretty, I do my best).

So, before you think I cooked all this in one day you should know that the roasted veggies were leftovers.  But they were still great, in fact, they were maybe even better because they weren’t quite soft enough the first time. The celeriac-beet salad was fairly simple, although celeriac can kind of be a pain to peel, and the ciabatta was really a side product of a large batch of pizza dough for Friday night’s dinner (I make my pizza dough 1-2 days ahead).  Finally, the slow-cooked chicken pretty much didn’t take any work other than preparing a spice combo, rubbing it on the chicken, and stuffing the chicken with a quartered-onion and 4 cloves of garlic.  Anywho, the meal is as follows:

Slow-Cooked Chicken

Adapted from A Year of Slow Cooking

• 1 whole chicken (4-5 lbs)

• 2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp paprika
• 1/2 tsp dried thyme
• 1-2 tsp Italian seasoning
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 1/2 tsp of chili powder or Cajun seasoning

• 4 whole garlic cloves (optional)
• 1 onion, quartered (optional)

Rub the chicken all over with the spices and add more of them if you feel like it.  I can’t say I measured and it turned out awesome!  Then stuff the inside of the bird with the garlic cloves and quarters of the onion.  

Put the prepared chicken in the crockpot and set to low (if you have 8 hours until dinner) or on high (if you have more like 4-5 hours).  Obviously don’t make this meal if you are planning on coming home after work and cooking dinner with no preparation, unless you want to eat at like 11pm, which I guess is fine if you live in Spain.

I checked the progress a few times throughout the afternoon and—surprise!—each time it was a bit hotter according to my thermometer.   Having put it in the crockpot around 10:30am we ate at about 6pm and it was perfect!

Celeriac-Beet Salad

• 1 celeriac
• 2 medium sized beets

• 3 tbs. oil
• 1 tbs. horseradish sauce
• 1 tbs. (Dijon) mustard
• 1 tbs. lemon juice
• 1 tbs. (balsamic) vinegar
• Salt and pepper

Peel the celeriac and beets.  Neither of those jobs is fun exactly, but I think it’s worth it.  I think I need to learn a bit more about celeriac because I struggle to peel it.

Anyways, I made it through that job and then grated the two types of vegetables.  I grated the beets on the standard grater and then used the side with three cutters for the celeriac, but I think it would have worked better with the standard side.  I then put the beets on the lower tray of a bamboo steamer and the celeriac on the higher tray and steamed for about 20-30 minutes.  The dressing could just be your favorite salad dressing if you don’t want to make one, but I thought the horseradish sauce would bring a nice spice to the dish.  Toss the steamed vegetables with the dressing and top with crumbled feta or goat cheese.

Roasted Winter Vegetables

Assemble 4-5 of your favorite winter vegetables—potatoes, sweet potatoes, turnips, rutabagas, carrots, beets, onions, etc.  Chop them up and toss them with some oil and a dash of vinegar, then sprinkle with salt and pepper and fresh or dried herbs.  Roast them in the oven for 30-40 minutes.  If you want the onions to not get over-cooked wait 10-15 minutes and then add them to the mix.  Make more than you need and eat them with other meals too!

Whole Wheat Ciabatta

I based my recipe various ones that were on the internet, a good starting place is http://www.thefreshloaf.com/keyword/ciabatta?page=1.  I feel like I haven’t perfected my own whole wheat recipe yet so I’m going to wait to post it until I feel like a ciabatta maestro!