Monday, July 14, 2008

Local Food: Win Some/Lose Some

Tonight's dinner was delicious featuring almost all local ingredients. Especially delicious to me were the tomatoes drizzled with avocado oil. The oil was obviously not local but came complements of a dear friend who gifted my co-conspirator with a fabulous selection of oils and vinegars from Vom Fass for a special birthday. The entree was a spinach and blueberry salad with blue cheese and grilled chicken breast.

The chicken was the loser. Sadly it was dry and tough. It was inedible. I've ground it up in a food processor and added mayonnaise, onions, olive oil and herbs in an attempt to make an edible chicken salad spread. Tomorrow's lunch will prove whether I wasted my time or not.

5 Responses:

Fast and Fabulous said...

I'm always fighting the urge to overcook poultry. I can hear my mother's admonishment to be sure there is no pink, no pink at all! Although we have no pictures, we suffered through tough turkey breast fillets last night. Dang.

Oh, local ingredients---nice!

Shady Character said...

I'm not certain it was overcooked. The grillmeister usually has a pretty good hand in these matters and the central part of the meat was actually moist, it was just chewy. The chicken salad ended up with a texture reminiscent of grocery store ham salad. In other words, it was pretty good.

Fast and Fabulous said...

Was it local free range chicken? All that exercise and muscle tissue makes for a chewier experience.

Shady Character said...

Yes, I believe it was free-range. But the cut in question was a breast. Unless the bird was taking advantage of its free range status to perform frequent air shows I don't see how it would develop chewier breasts unless it was a general physiological thing.

Fast and Fabulous said...

Well, they don't have to fly to Peoria, simply being able to flap their wings, do a few push-ups, and generally keep active, makes for a tougher meat. (Our turkey was farm-raised, free range, fairly local as turkeys go) Those caged birds I saw on the PBS special were really confined and unable to move a muscle...but I bet the meat was plump and tender!