The Semiconservative Granola Girl

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Dill Pickle Brine for Chicken

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Recently, I was in the throes of painting my dining room.  For 10 years I have hated and the paint (sponge paint, border and purple-ish–way too dark) and finally we made the plunge.  Sunshine helped me take everything out of the china cabinet so we could move it away from the wall, remove the border and prime the room.  The boy “helped” paint the baseboard heaters.  It took three days, two coats of primer and two coats of a loverly light shade of grey.  So, what I really needed on Monday while Jim was going to be away all day was an easy crock pot dinner.  Immediately, my mind went to one of our family favorites:  Crock Pot Dill Pickle Chicken.  The only problem was that we only have one jar of pickles left from last year’s batch and it’s still pretty full of, well, pickles.  That got me to wondering.  How would it be if I just made a Dill Pickle Brine for Chicken minus the pickles?  And what do you know?  It worked.

Dill Pickle Brine for Chicken | brine chicken in a dilly vinegar based brine for the grill or the electric smoker | Whole30 | Paleo | No sugar | Gluten free

Dill Pickle Brine for Chicken

You will have to plan a little ahead for this one.  Your brine will need to sit for at least five hours, over night would be better.  Start with white vinegar, water and pickling salt.  Bring those three ingredients to a boil.  Then in a mason jar or glass measuring cup, prepare 6-8 cloves of garlic and one tablespoon of dill seeds.  I used in a tea ball for the dill seeds, but you could make a packet out of a coffee filter and twine or filter them out later by pouring it through a mesh strainer.  Pour the hot liquid over the garlic and dill seed and allow it to steep.  As it steeps, it gets a lovely amber color from the dill seeds.

Dill Pickle Brine for Chicken | brine chicken in a dilly vinegar based brine for the grill or the electric smoker | Whole30 | Paleo | No sugar | Gluten free

When you are ready to use it, discard the dill seeds and garlic, if desired.  We usually use the garlic in our recipes, so I save it out, that’s why it was handy to have the dill seeds in the tea ball.

Using Dill Pickle Brine for Chicken

Dill Pickle Brine for Chicken | brine chicken in a dilly vinegar based brine for the grill or the electric smoker | Whole30 | Paleo | No sugar | Gluten free

Dill Pickle Brine is perfect for Crock Pot Dill Pickle Chicken.  I just used the whole recipe with boneless chicken thighs.  Use it to brine bone-in chicken thighs for Smoked Dill Pickle Chicken.  Or use it as a brine for grilling and baking your favorite cut of chicken.  Double the recipe and your could even brine a whole chicken for roasting.  You could easily double, triple or quadruple the recipe and have it in the refrigerator ready to go when you need it.  It will last several weeks (longer, I’m sure) just like your favorite homemade pickles.

We hope that you enjoy having dill pickle brine whenever you need it, not just when the pickles are gone!  Let us know how you use it.

PS. This post may contain affiliate links. When you click the link and make a purchase through the link, we make a little money, this helps to keep The Semiconservative Granola Girl going. Thank you for your support.

Print Recipe
 Dill Pickle Brine for Chicken
Keyword brine
Prep Time 5 minutes
Passive Time 5+ hours
Servings
cups
Ingredients
Keyword brine
Prep Time 5 minutes
Passive Time 5+ hours
Servings
cups
Ingredients
Instructions
  1. Boil the vinegar, water and salt.
  2. If desired, put dill seeds in a tea ball or create a pouch using using a coffee filter and twine.
  3. Add garlic cloves and dill seeds to a glass measuring cup or mason jar. Pour hot vinegar mixture over it.
  4. Allow to steep for 5 hours or more. Refrigerate until ready to use.
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Drumstick Chicken Soup

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Recently, while we were home for a snow day and while we were Going Whole30, I suggested that I would make Hearty Whole30 Tomato Soup for lunch.  Sunshine said, “Can’t you make chicken soup?”  So I thought about it for a minute.  There was a bag of frozen drumsticks in the freezer in the garage.  So, okay, Drumstick Chicken Soup.  It turns out to be the best bone broth chicken soup ever.  It is now part of our regular rotation for lunches and make ahead swim team night dinner.

Drumstick Chicken Soup is also super economical.  At least at our grocery store, drumsticks are 20 cents per pound cheaper than any other cut of chicken, including whole birds.  And, since the dark meat typically has more flavor, this soup has a great flavor without a lot of additions to it.

Drumstick Chicken Soup

Drumstick Chicken Soup

The big family packs of drumsticks that I buy usually contain twelve drumsticks.  So, I typically divide that into sixes to freeze.  But really, you could make any amount of soup based on the an easy one drumstick to one cup of water ratio.  The first time I made it, I had six frozen drumsticks that I put into six cups of water.  I have since made the whole package and used twelve cups.  It works out perfectly either way.

Begin by placing your chicken (fresh or straight from the freezer) and water in a 6 quarter stock pot.  Cover.  Bring to a boil on high and then reduce and simmer covered for about an hour.  If the drumsticks are frozen and stuck together, as they begin to thaw in the hot broth, pry them apart so they will cook more quickly.

Once the meat has cooked for an hour or so, remove the drumsticks from broth.  Allow them to cool, so you can pick the meat from them.  Add chopped onion, celery, carrots, fresh parsley and salt and pepper.  We’ve been making this a Whole30 recipe, so I also add baby potatoes that this point.

After the meat has cooled to the touch, pick the meat from the bones and add it back to the soup.  You can add additional vegetables at this point.  We’ve been using fresh green beans, but that is entirely up to your vegetable likes and dislikes.  Before Whole30, I would have added a whole bag of frozen mixed vegetables.  If we didn’t have fresh green beans, I would use frozen.  Cauliflower would also be good in Drumstick Chicken Soup.

Customize Your Drumstick Chicken Soup

I think the magic of this soup is the 1:1 ration of water to drumstick.  After that, you can totally make it to your own likes and dislikes.  If you’re a regular here at The Semiconservative Granola Girl, you know that Sunshine especially doesn’t like spice.  However, if you like spice, add some red pepper flakes.  If you are not Whole30, instead of potatoes you could use rice or tortellini or egg noodles.

During our Whole30, I made this soup on the weekend and stored it it a half-gallon glass mason jar (one of my 10 Uses for Mason Jars in Your Kitchen) and dished it out throughout the week for lunches.  Wide mouth pint jars are perfect for reheating at work.  This soup would also freeze well.  However, if you are going to freeze it, I would not add the potatoes.  Potatoes notoriously don’t freeze well.

Comfort Food:  Drumstick Chicken Soup

drumstick chicken soup with spoon

So, even though Mother Nature has been playing tricks with our weather.  This lovely winter break warm up that made it perfect for tapping the maple trees and harvesting lots of sap to make maple syrup.  (Check out our post on Six Lesson in Making Maple Syrup).  This is the perfect soup weather, winter comfort food.  So enjoy a batch of Drumstick Chicken Soup today.

PS. This post may contain affiliate links. When you click the link and make a purchase through the link, we make a little money, this helps to keep The Semiconservative Granola Girl going. Thank you for your support.

Print Recipe
 Drumstick Chicken Soup
Course Soup
Cuisine Whole30
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 2 hours
Servings
cups
Ingredients
Course Soup
Cuisine Whole30
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 2 hours
Servings
cups
Ingredients
Instructions
  1. In a covered stock pot, bring water and drumsticks to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for an hour or longer.
  2. Remove the chicken to a plate to cool.
  3. Add the rest of the ingredients, except the green beans, to the broth and cook an additional half hour.
  4. Once the drumsticks has cooled, remove the chicken from the bones and add the meat back into the soup. Add the green beans. Simmer another 30 minutes or so.
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Quick Ham and Bean Soup

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Sometimes this winter weather just calls for soup.  And I love soup.  Nothing smells better than a house with homemade soup simmering on the stove.  (Except maybe one with homemade bread in the oven.)  But, sometimes in our busy schedules we just don’t have time to make soup.  The hours of simmering on the stove.  All of the cutting and chopping and waiting for the meat the cool so that it can be removed from the bone.  But this Quick Ham and Bean Soup is a weeknight meal that you can make (mostly) from scratch.

Quick Ham and Bean Soup | 20 minute homemade soup from leftover ham and canned beans.

Quick Ham and Bean Soup

If you follow my blog here, you know that we purchased half a pig from a friend who raised it for harvest.  And, you also know that we had lots of leftovers from the ham we got from said pig.  I already shared Cheesy Ham Shepherd’s Pie with you and Six Uses for Leftover Ham.  Today, I am going to share a quick soup recipe that you can make from leftover ham or from a ham steak.  And, unlike a ham bone soup, it’s quick enough for a weeknight meal.

The trick is to use canned beans a little bit of stock helper, Better than Bouillon Ham Base.

So just chop an onion and a couple of stalks of celery.  Saute them in some butter until soft.  Add some water, ham, a can of beans and some Better than Bouillon Ham Base.  Bring it to a boil and then let it simmer for 20 minutes or more if you have time.  When I made this soup, we didn’t have time and the celery was still a little chewy, but overall the flavor was perfect.

Weeknight Soup

So we hope that you will make a batch of Quick Ham and Bean Soup.  We have some ham on reserve in the freezer to make another batch soon.  Let us know what you think in the comments below.  And be sure to come back for a quick Hearty Tomato Soup that is perfect for grilled cheese.

PS. This post may contain affiliate links. When you click the link and make a purchase through the link, we make a little money, this helps to keep The Semiconservative Granola Girl going. Thank you for your support.

Print Recipe
 Quick Ham and Bean Soup
Course Soup
Cuisine Locavore
Prep Time 5 minutes
Cook Time 20-40 minutes
Servings
Ingredients
Course Soup
Cuisine Locavore
Prep Time 5 minutes
Cook Time 20-40 minutes
Servings
Ingredients
Instructions
  1. In a large sauce pan or Dutch oven, melt the butter. Saute celery and onions until they are soft.
  2. Add the rest of the ingredients. Bring to a boil and then simmer for 20-45 minutes.
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Citrus Red Sangria

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Citrus Red Sangria

Too Many Lemons

Sangria is such a great summer drink. And it is really easy to make. I first tried sangria on a high school trip to Spain. (The drinking laws are different in Spain and we were permitted to have A single glass with a meal if our parents had signed permission.) Even then, I loved the citrusy red wine flavor. A few weeks ago, I experimented with a Summer White Wine Sangria. This week, I had an abundance of lemons left over from the Lemon Jelly.  What’s a Semiconservative Granola Girl to do when she has too many lemons?  Make lemonade?  No, silly.  She makes Citrus Red Sangria with lots of lemons, limes and oranges.

citrus red sagria fruit

Citrus Red Sangria

For me, sangria always starts with a simple syrup. This recipe makes a big batch, so it calls for a full cup of citrus simple syrup: slices of lemon, lime and orange with sugar and water. In a small sauce pan, combine sugar, water, slices from a whole lemon and lime and half an orange. Bring to a boil and then let cook for 3-5 minutes to really allow the the essence of the citrus to get into the syrup.

citrus red sangria fuit slices

Let the syrup cool for about 10 minutes. Then, in a 3 quart pitcher, add the syrup with the cooked citrus, a 3 liter bottle of cheap wine. I used Lake Country Red Table Wine (only $9.99 at our local liquor store). We live in the Finger Lakes, and it is important to me to use wine from local wineries. It you live in a wine country, I hope you will do the same. Top with the rest of the fruit.

Chill and enjoy Citrus Red Sangria with ice and a little club soda, if desired. Of course, this is something that gets better with time, but not too much time.  We found that the second day was perfect.  By the third or forth day, the sangria started to pick up some of the bitterness of the citrus pith (the white part between the peel and the fruit).  If you plan to keep it longer than three days, remove the citrus fruit and it should be fine.

PS. This post may contain affiliate links. When you click the link and make a purchase through the link, we make a little money, this helps to keep The Semiconservative Granola Girl going. Thank you for your support.

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Print Recipe
 Citrus Red Sangria
Course Adult Beverages
Prep Time 10 minutes
Passive Time 3+ hours
Servings
Quarts
Ingredients
Course Adult Beverages
Prep Time 10 minutes
Passive Time 3+ hours
Servings
Quarts
Ingredients
Instructions
  1. Slice the fruit by cutting just a sliver from each end and then slice into ¼ inch wheels.
  2. In a small sauce pan, add water, sugar, the slices from 1 lemon, 1 lime and half an orange. Bring to a boil and then simmer for about 5 minutes.
  3. Let the citrus syrup cool for 10-30 minutes.
  4. In a 3 quarter pitcher, add the syrup with cooked fruit, wine and additional fruit slices.
  5. Chill for 3 hours-overnight. Serve with ice and club soda if desired.
Recipe Notes

This was best the second day.  The fruits had melded perfectly with the simple syrup and the wine.  By the forth day, it had become a little bitter from the pith of the citrus.  If you plan to keep it longer than 3 days, removed the fruit.

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Summer Sangria

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I had my first glass of sangria when I traveled to Spain as a high school student. (At the time, probably still, Spain had no drinking age and as long as our parents signed permission, we were allowed one drink at meal time.)  It was a red sangria and fruity and yummy.  Fast forward 25 years:  I am flipping through an all purpose cookbook and see a recipe for sangria.  The recipe was super easy, just fruit, simple syrup, wine and club soda.  And the love affair begins.  Enter experimentation; enter Summer Sangria.

Summer Entertaining

Summer Sangria

Summer is a season of entertaining and Summer Sangria is a super easy recipe to wow your guests.  A light, fruity white sangria just seems so summery, too.  Choose a cheap wine since you will be adding simple syrup and fruit, it is unnecessary to invest in a “good wine.”  Then, it becomes all about the presentation–a wine glass with fruit floating in in it and all your guests will be pulling out their phones to take pictures.

I often drink wine while we are at our Adirondack cabin.  Usually, when we have wine at the cabin, we reach for our redneck wine glasses, but we pulled out the real wine glasses to enjoy the batch of Summer Sangria that I made for the recent holiday weekend.

Simple Syrup

fruited simple syrup

The word syrup makes it sound complicated, but simple syrup is just sugar and water brought to a boil to melt the sugar.  When I make sangria, I add fruit right to the sugar and water to infuse the flavor into it.  Because I wanted to get the flavor of strawberry and citrus, I added the ends of a lemon and a lime and two whole strawberries.  Bring the mixture to a boil.  Let it cool.  Remove the cooked fruit after it has cooled.

Summer Sangria

Summer Sangria

Add the cooled simple syrup to slices of lemon, lime, more strawberries and blackberries.  Pour a 3 liter bottle of wine over that and chill until you are ready to server it.  I used Taylor Lake Country Table White.  (It’s a decent wine and it is only $9.99 for three liters at our local liquor store!) We live in the Finger Lakes, so I generally make it a practice to use local wines.  If you have wineries that are local to your area, you should use them.  Keep it local!

The longer you chill it, the more time your flavors will have to meld.  We drank this over the course of several days and the last day was definitely the best!  Be sure to plan ahead for this recipe!

This is a great drink to server with Venison Pepper Steak.  The sweet with the gentle spice of the steak is super.  We also served it up with Texas Caviar as an appetizer.

PS. This post contains affiliate links. If you decide to make a purchase through this link, we receive a small payment. We would really appreciate it if you use the links on this page. It helps us to keep our website up and running!

Print Recipe
 Summer Sangria
Course Adult Beverages
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 5 minutes
Passive Time 4+ hours
Servings
Quarts
Ingredients
Course Adult Beverages
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 5 minutes
Passive Time 4+ hours
Servings
Quarts
Ingredients
Instructions
  1. Prepare the fruit by washing and slicing the lemon and lime. Do not discard the ends. Wash and hull the strawberries. Quarter the large ones (but leave at least two whole for the simple syrup). Wash and pick through the blackberries.
  2. Add the ends of the lemon and lime along with two big strawberries to a small sauce pan. Add sugar and water. Bring to a boil and let cook for a couple of minutes.
  3. Remove from heat and let it cool.
  4. Add the rest of the lemon and lime slices, strawberries, blackberries and cooled simple syrup to a pitcher. Pour wine over it and chill.
  5. To serve, add some ice and a couple of pieces of fruit to each wine glass and then pour the sangria over it.
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