Sunday 22 January 2012

The 10 Mile Dinner

Tonight I am making a traditional Sunday Night Supper. A lot of people rave about the 100 mile dinner, and it is a way that we eat regularly. My parents live 10 miles away, on piece of land severed from my grandparents farm. My Uncle now farms that land, as well as his farm which adjoins it. As a result, the chicken, beef, and some vegetables and fruit that we eat are from the land I grew up on.

We do have to puchase a lot of our fresh fruit and veggies in the store though, and perfect timing, a friend of mine posted an article on facebook about purchasing producing at the grocery store.. check out the full article here: www.eatdrinkexplore.com/

Essentially, this is the way to identify if your foods are genetically modified or not:
ORGANIC - The number 9 is added to the front of the regular four digit PLU code (e.g. an organically grown banana would be 94011).
GENETICALLY MODIFIED (GMO) - The number 8 is added in front of the regular four digit PLU code (e.g. a genetically engineered vine ripe tomato would be 84805).
CONVENTIONAL - No number is added, so you will just see the standard four digit code (e.g. a conventionally grown banana would be 4011).
I checked it out when buying produce yesterday and although I didn't look through everything, I didn't find anything with an 8.. which is good!

But on to more important items.. tonight's meal!

Tonight's menu is:
Roasted Chicken
Roasted Vegetables (Carrots and Onions)
Mashed Potatoes

and for dessert: Rhubarb Crumble

The main ingredients of each of these dishes are from the farm, including the rhubarb.


Roasted Chicken seems simple enough, but watching cooking shows can show you there are various ways to jazz it up. Recently I watched Chef Michael Smith and he used his vegetables as a roasting rack. I had seen this done on another show as well, although the name/chef escapes me right now. Needless to say, I thought I'd try it and see how it goes.

We get our chickens cut in half, as a whole 8 pound chicken is a bit much for just the two of us.. in case you are wondering about why the chicken looked strange in the picture below.

I placed the chicken on the 'rack', rubbed it a bit with olive oil and sprinkled Rosemary and Thyme on it, threw it in the oven at 350, until it is done. I say 'until it is done' because that will all depend on the size of the chicken, and if it was frozen and fully thawed when you put in on, etc. The smell of rosemary and thyme is so lovely as it cooks.

It is great to have almost all of the meal ready in one pan. Once it is ready, I pulled out the carrots and some of the onion, and made gravy. To make my gravy, I take away some of the grease, add the water from the potatoes (it has some of the 'goodness' in it) and thicken it with cornstarch (I'm a cornstarch girl.. not flour) Tonight's meal is just regular mashed potatoes with it.


I don't know if having the veggies on the bottom as a rack made any real difference at the end of the day.. it certainly didn't taste any different than usual, or was any more moist in my opinion.. but it makes sense in theory.

I'll save the Rhubarb Crumble recipe for another day...

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