Back to Basics: How to Make Ghee

"Ghee is a class of clarified butter that originated in ancient India and is commonly used in South Asian cuisines, traditional medicine, and religious rituals." -Wikipedia

In today's world there are a lot of people who cannot tolerate dairy, myself included. One of the good things about ghee is that, when it is prepared correctly, the milk proteins are removed. This means that many people who cannot tolerate butter can tolerate ghee. Basically, it is the best of both worlds: the benefits (and taste!) of butter without the casein and proteins that you may react to.

You can find ghee in the store:

... but I suggest you make it yourself if you have lactose intolerance as I have found that it is very easy and a lot more of the milk proteins seem to be removed when I make it myself than when I purchase it at the store. The exception to this would have to be Tin Star Food's ghee. I have heard awesome things about their ghee from people who do not tolerate dairy well. This isn't to say that other brands' ghee isn't great, I just haven't tried it so I don't want to speak to it. The brand of ghee you see above ended up making me decide to stop being lazy and make some ghee at home again. That's good for you guys though because you can now see how I make it!

INGREDIENTS: 

• butter (grass-fed butter is a little more difficult to find but is the best due to the higher quality... more vitamins for one!)

EQUIPMENT:

• small pot
• cheesecloth
• glass container for storing ghee

PROCEDURE:
1. Place butter in sauce pan over low heat. I couldn't find grass-fed unsalted butter so I am using a salted variation.

2. Check on butter regularly over the next 2-3 hours, stirring as necessary. It does take a long time to make but you don't have to stand over it the whole time. I often put it on and then go clean my house or do homework, checking on it about every 20-30 minutes. 

3. When you see the milk solids have settled to the bottom and begun to brown so your liquid butter has become golden in color it is time to remove it from the heat. When it gets close to this point though I suggest you stick close to your pot to make sure you only slightly brown the solids verses burning them. I should have left this batch on the stove for a few more minutes so that the milk solids would brown a bit more but I was running behind. It still came out beautifully though.

4. Strain the liquid through cheesecloth into a non-plastic container (I have melted a plastic one before... oh the mess!). The milk solids will remain in the cheesecloth while your ghee will strain through the mesh to the container beneath.

5. Place your ghee in a container. If it has been prepared properly you won't need to refrigerate it and it will last for months!

The unrefrigerated ghee is on the left but if you do store it in the fridge it will look like you see on the right.


One thing to understand about ghee is that the flavor is more intense than the butter you started with. I would suggest adding a little at a time to your dish when first learning to cook with ghee for this reason. Another, awesome, thing to know is that the smoke point is incredibly high so it is great for high heat cooking like sautes and stir fries! I have heard it said that 'you flavor with it like butter but cook with it like oil' and I find that to be fairly accurate but I tend to use less ghee than butter when flavoring with it due to my personal preferences on taste.

Easy Roasted Chicken- 2 Ways

Sorry I've been MIA guys... it has been a little bit crazy in my personal life this past week with a new doctor, an MRI, grad school starting up again and some other personal issues so I wasn't able to get a lot of blogging work completed unfortunately. Never fear, I am not gone from the net-verse! I have a list of posts that I am working on currently including a review of one of my favorite running apps (I can't run but I love it for my walks!) plus I ordered the backpack that I was talking about in my previous post. It should get here this week so that review will be upcoming as well- I'm so excited! Then it's a couple of recipes and a post about how I organize my household chores for quick completion throughout the week. I completely re-did my chart to show you guys how I came up with my personal plan from start to finish so that you can design your own that works for your family! For today though I am talking about two recipes for roasted chicken that are very simple to make. Read more below.

 

This week I decided to stick with chicken as my main protein as it was on sale and I've had some big expenses lately. I picked up some chicken thighs and drumsticks for a good price and headed home to see what I would come up with once I got in the kitchen. Unfortunately by the time I got home I wasn't feeling very well at all as I had had an MRI earlier in the day and the contrast dye really doesn't get out of system as fast as the doctors say it should- possibly due to the MTHFR but its an unknown and doesn't really matter in the end. The dye makes me sick to my stomach and causes my POTS to act up... I had to wait a while after the MRI before I could leave as I was pretty dizzy actually. So I went with as little time as possible on my feet in the kitchen and had some cuddles with my pups.  Here they are... I love my love-bugs! The one on the left is Roxanne or Roxy and on the right is my Isabel or Izzy. They are both 4 years old turning 5 in January and February of 2016. Roxy just had quite the health scare if you recall- she almost died! She is doing so much better now though, happy as a clam and hyper as all get out. Isabel is a bit more mellow but is crazy about her ball and will bug you for hours on end to throw it again and again... do not forget to pack it if we go visit somewhere or there will be craziness. It's basically her binky... and the only toy she cannot destroy in less than a minute (tennis ball to gravel in 60 seconds people, for serious). I will likely review the toy maker at some point since I have quite a few of their toys if anyone is interested.

For the chicken thighs I drizzled a little ghee and 2 cloves of rough chopped garlic (you could use melted butter if you prefer), did a quick massage to get everything coated well then sprinkled on some sea salt and fresh cracked black pepper and popped it in the oven. If you want it with a little kick add some paprika... yumm!

For the drumsticks I went with a citrus taste. I simply squeezed two lemons and a lime on top of the drumsticks and added the same salt and pepper as on the thighs. There are so many options for this with marinades including zest, spices and etc that I will be going back and experimenting with this combination again in the future but tonight I just wanted fast but still tasty.

For both of these dishes I set the oven to 300 degrees in order to get a slow roast on the chicken over a couple of hours. Depending on the amount of chicken you have in the oven the cook time could vary but it took about 3 hours for mine to be fully cooked. Make sure to check the internal temperature if you aren't sure if the chicken is fully cooked or not. So far I have enjoyed these dishes as lunches and dinners throughout the week. What other ways do you cook up chicken in your house? :)