Recipe: Cajun chicken

Our family loves roasted chicken, so I try to make it in many types of ways as possible. And here is another way. It's a child friendly recipe. My children love it. Usually I serve roasted vegetables, such a carrots, parsnips and swede with roasted potatoes with it. The best part about that is that you can put the chicken at the top shelf and the vegetables with potatoes in 1 oven dish on the bottom shelf in your oven and it is all done at the same time. I put the vegetables at the bottom of the dish and the potatoes at the top, so they get some more crunch to them.

Origin: Louisiana maybe. I don't really know, but I use a cajun spice mix.

Difficulty: easy
Time: 2 hours in total from start to finish, but that is including the 1h30m in the oven, so 30 minutes real work
Serves: 6
Yield: 6 pieces 
Traditional/GAPS/SCD legal, Primal, Paleo

Equipment:

• Oven
• 1 oven dish
• 1 roemer topf or a oven dish with a lid

Ingredients:

• 1 chicken of about 2 kg
• 1 jar of cajun spice mix of Steenbergs
• 1 bunch of thyme
• celtic sea salt
• black pepper

Things to do ahead:
1 day ahead - defreeze chicken
1 hour ahead - soak your roemer topf and take your chicken out of the fridge and let it come to room temperature

Directions:

• Preheat your oven to 180C/350F/Gas4
• Put your chicken in the roemer topf.
• Cut your lemon in half and cut one half again. The other half you squeeze out over your chicken. The other 2 you squeeze out into the cavity and put the squeezed lemons inside.
• Put the part of the thyme inside and part under your chicken.
• Spread about 2 tablespoons of cajun spice mix over your chicken on all sides. Massage it in well.
• Close the lid of your roemer topf.
• Put your roemer topf into the oven for 1 hour.
• After the hour take the lid off your roemer topf. Put up the heat to 220C/430F/Gas7. Pour the cooking juices as well as you can over the chicken.
• Leave the chicken in for another 20 to 30 hours. Depending on how heavy your chicken has been. When it's somewhat under 2 kilos 20 minutes is usually enough. When it is over 2 kilos 30 minutes is often necessary.
• Make sure your chicken is cooked well by checking whether the juices run clear.
• Take your chicken out of the oven, put the lid back on the roemertopf and leave it standing for 30 minutes to an hour to rest.
• Take the bones out of the chicken and let the chicken absorb the juices a bit.

Enjoy!

Recipe: Whole chicken shawarma from the slow cooker

In the slow cooker, adding the rub

Finished cooking, just put it on a plate.

Here is another family favourite. When we lived in The Netherlands we sometimes got Shawarma from the Shawarma take-away. In The Netherlands it is actually written differently: Shoarma. Either way, all of us loved it. Frequently we would get it with mushrooms and peppers added or things like that. There were quite some varieties possible in most of the take-aways. But since we moved the first time to the UK we haven't had it much anymore. When we lived in The Netherlands the last time somehow in the area where we lived then there were mainly döner take-aways there. So we hadn't had it in many years. So when I read about it again a few years ago I realised how long it had been ago since we had it and how initially we had all craved it and the kids had asked about it. At some point they asked me to make it myself. But I couldn't see myself buy one of these upright grills or how to actually make it. It looked very difficult from the way they made it in the take-aways. So I had forgotten about it altogether for years. Until a few years ago when I read about it. At that point it was described on how to make it as a roast in the oven. Of course that worked. But it didn't taste as great as I remembered it. So I started tweaking the recipe and read up on other sites about it and asked friends from the Middle East how they made this type of food. So slowly but carefully I ended up getting it better and better. But then I got lazy and found it too much effort to make a roast in the oven. I started reading a bit more and looked up whether I could make it in the slow cooker. I found that some had done it with good results. So I had to try of course. The first time was right away a great success. The whole house smelled wonderful and everyone was more than ready for dinner by dinner time, they had been smelling it all day long LOL. Since I have made it quite regularly and because we love it so much I felt I should share it with you. We usually eat it with pita breads, garlic sauce, lettuce, onions, tomatoes and cucumber. Not everyone eat all with it. I love the raw onions, my kids not so much :-)

Origin: Middle east

Just before eating

Difficulty: easy
Time: 8 hours
Serves: 6 
Traditional/GAPS/SCD legal, Primal

Equipment:

• Slow cooker

Ingredients:

• 1 whole chicken
• 6 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, divided
• 2 tsp cumin
• 2 tsp paprika
• 1 tsp allspice
• 3/4 tsp turmeric
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon
• Pinch of cayenne
• Salt and black pepper
• 3 tbsp yoghurt
• juice of 1 lemon
• butter, chicken fat or such

Things to do ahead:
2 days ahead - thaw chicken in fridge
1 day ahead - start sourdough pita breads
1 day ahead - make garlic sauce

Directions:

• Grease the slow cooker with butter, chicken fat or such.
• Make a nice rub with all the spices, yoghurt and lemon juice. 
• After mixing it well, rub it all over the chicken, which you could cut in bits if you prefer. I usually keep it whole. 
• Put the chicken in the slow cooker and turn in on low for 8 hours. or 4 hours on high.

Possible substitutions:
dairy - coconut
butter - coconut, tallow, etc.

Ready to dig in

Martinmas soup

As we are following the Waldorf system of education we do pay some attention to the Waldorf festival. We like them as they have a basis in paganism as well, so we can make them quite earth friendly.
When we lived in The Netherlands it was celebrated quite widely. On the evening of 11 November all the children would go out with their lanterns and ring at peoples door, sing a Martinmas song and get sweets from the people.

Every year we make a Martinmas soup, as we hollow out a swede or 2 to make a lantern with it. ON the picture above you see the soup.
We always have roasted chestnuts with it as well and some sourdough buns to dip in the soup. In the time that we lived in The Netherlands it was quite a busy day because as soon as it got dark the children we coming round the houses, so there wasn't a lot of time to cook and eat.

Traditionally the soup with burn and chestnuts would be eaten before going out for the singing and bonfires. People would take scrap wood out and make bonfires. While watching the bonfires there would be waffles eaten as well. Just plain waffles, nothing serious. At some point in the future I will post a sourdough waffle recipe and link it here.
We make a little fire in our garden for these days. Where we live now nobody celebrates Martinmas, so we keep it very simple. As the children have already had their sweets at Halloween a few days before we don't give them any either.

Enjoy the soup.

Origin: Western Europe

Difficulty: easy

Time: 15 minutes preparation time & 30 minutes cooking time

Serves: 6

Traditional/GAPS/SCD legal, Primal, Paleo

Equipment:

• pan
• knives

Ingredients:

• 2 small swedes or 1 big swede
• 600 ml broth
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander
• 2 juniper berries
• salt
• pepper
• 1 leek
• 1 carrot
• cream (optional)

Directions:

• Put the broth with the swede, carrot, bay leaf, coriander and juniper berries in a pan and cook for about 20 minutes, until the swede is soft
• Remove the bay leaf and juniper berries.
• Add the leek and let it cook for another 10 minutes.
• Blend with a stick mixer.
• Taste and add salt and pepper to taste

In case you want to prepare the soup partially a day or 2 ahead you can do this by cooking the swede with the carrot and spices. Once the swede is cooked it won't get bitter anymore. Once you have cut it it tends to get a bit bitter when it is laying around for a bit. I try to cook swede as quickly as possible after cutting.

Squash from the oven

Last Thursday I made Squash from the oven. In our vegetable and fruit box there was a carnival squash. I had never heard of it, so I looked it up online and read a bit about how it can be cooked. In the oven it goes for 25-30 minutes in an oven preheated to 190C/375F/Gas 5.

This is what my Carnival squash looked like. Quite a nice one.

Here it is cut in half.

Getting it ready for the oven.

Finished.

Difficulty: easy

Time: 45 minutes

Yield: 8 pieces

Traditional/GAPS/SCD legal, Primal

Equipment:

• oven
• oven bowl

Ingredients:

• 1 Carnival squash
• smoked lardons
• Provencal herb mix
• maple syrup
• salt and pepper to taste
• ghee or lard (1)

Directions:

• .Preheat the oven to 190C/375F/Gas 5.
• Cut the squash in half and take out the seeds and threads.
• Cut up the squash further, until you have 8 pieces.
• Put the pieces with the inside up in an oven safe bowl.
• Top with some salt and pepper, provencal herbs, smoked lards, ghee and maple syrup
• Put in the oven for 25-30 minutes
• Enjoy

Possible substitutions:

1. dairy - coconut

Lasagne

Difficulty: easy
Time: Oven 1 hour, slow cooker 4 to 7 hours
Serves: 6
Yield: 6 pieces 
Traditional/GAPS/SCD legal, Primal

Equipment:

• Oven or slow cooker
• Pan
• large oven safe bowl in case the oven is used

Ingredients:

• 1 kg beef mince or 500 gr pork mince and 500 gr beef mince
• butter, lard, tallow, beef drippings
• courgette
• onions
• mushrooms
• garlic
• passata
• grated cheese
• salt, peper, oregano

Things to do ahead:

• 1 day ahead thaw meat

Directions:

• Preheat the oven on 180C/350F, fan assisted on 160C, gas 4 when using the oven
• Clean and slice the courgette
• Cube the onions and set aside
• Slice the mushrooms and set aside
• Brown the beef in a pan in some butter, lard, tallow or beef drippings, add onions, mushrooms and garlic to the pan and fry with the meat until soft
• Add the passata and let it cook for a bit.
• Add salt, pepper and oregano to taste, keeping in mind that there will be courgette used in stead of the traditional lasagna sheets, which means that the sauce may need a bit more salt and pepper
• Spoon some of the sauce into the bowl or slow cooker crock, top with a layer of sliced courgette, again a layer of sauce, topped with a layer of courgette, until the sauce and the courgette are all done, finishing with a layer of sauce.
• Top with grated cheese.
• When using the oven put the bowl in the oven for about 35 to 45 minutes, keep an eye on it by the time you reach the 35 minutes mark.
• When using the slow cooker, put it in for 6 hours on low or 3 hours on high.
• Buon apetito!

Possible substitutions:

1. butter - coconut, tallow, lard, beef drippings

2. cheese - omit or use a bechamel sauce