I love eating Paleo. I love it. I love to try new things, and I love to tweak old recipes to be new favorites. I love checking out my favorite paleo blogs (like this one and this one), and I love coming up with new recipes with awesome fresh ingredients, carefully layered spices and creative flavors.
Some nights, though, you just need to keep it simple. Simplifying is one of the things I'm focusing on this year, and the more I do it, the more I thank myself. So, after wrapping up a particularly stressful week at work today, I came home and put together a dinner that was impossibly simple, but completely delicious and satisfying. I had the presence of mind to mix up a ridiculously easy salt-water brine this morning, and I tossed in some chicken thighs on my way out the door. If you've never brined meat before, I cannot recommend it highly enough. Pre-Whole30 Diana would have thought brining to be highly overrated and a completely unnecessary step in the cooking process. Nowadays, though, with Whole30 really giving me the opportunity to taste the natural crazy delicious flavors in beautiful ingredients, I can appreciate the awesome moisture and unbeatable flavor that brining lends to chicken. After getting home and baking/broiling the chicken, I tossed together a quick salad of chopped cucumbers and red peppers with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar, mixed with a little bit of dried basil and cracked black pepper. I tossed a few whole mediterranean olives on the plate, and dinner was ready! It was so easy to put together (about 10 minutes of hands-on time from start to finish....seriously) which gave me ample time to curl up on the couch in my Millenium Falcon tshirt and watch two episodes of "Say Yes To The Dress" while the chicken cooked.
So, do you want to try brining? Here's my recipe - give it a try!
Diana's Easy Chicken Brine:
(makes enough for 4-6 chicken thighs, or 4 chicken breasts)
1/4 cup of salt (kosher salt is best, but you can use regular table salt if you don't have kosher)
2 bay leaves
1/2 teaspoon of ground coriander
2 tablespoons of minced garlic
1/4 teaspoon of cracked black pepper
1/2 tablespoon dried sage
water
In a large bowl (like a large salad bowl, or a medium sized soup-pot) add all of the dry ingredients along with the minced garlic. Add enough water to fill about half of the bowl/pot. Give the water a good stir, so that all of the dry ingredients and garlic are mixed in evenly. Add in your chicken, making sure there's enough water in the bowl/pot to cover it completely. If you need to add a little bit more water at this stage, go for it! We're making chicken here, not attempting to launch a shuttle into orbit. Next, put the whole thing in the fridge for about 8 hours. That's it! After 8 hours (which is conveniently approximately the length of a work day, or approximately the time it takes you to sleep at night), pour out the brine mixture, and pat the chicken dry. At this point, you can either cook it right away, or (if you brined it overnight) you can toss the chicken in a big Ziplock bag and cook it later. Whatever you do, though, don't be tempted to leave that chicken in the brine for longer than 8 hours, or I promise it will come out tasting super salty. Like incredibly salty. Like Poseidon's salty boogers. Nobody wants that. Happy brining, everybody!
Dinner....sooooo good!
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