The Local Cook

WARNING: This recipe not for the faint of heart or weak of colon.

I decided to combine two challenges today. My blogger friend FJ, whose blog is www.flawlessfitnessbook.com, asked me to create a meaty dish with some sort of high-water content vegetable, preferably spicy. His audience is a bunch of hard-core bodybuilders (although, I love his style of writing and find his advice just as helpful for a regular old person trying to lose weight and get more fit).

I knew right away I’d want to use sriracha sauce–if it’s heat he wants, it’s heat he’ll get! It’s not local, but it was the inspiration for the rest of the meal, which you’ll see uses local ingredients.

(Image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/swnktstic/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

To cut the heat a little, I decided to mix the sauce with some local, raw honey. (Here’s a tip–if you have a local homebrew supply store near you, it can be a great source for inexpensive bulk honey as mead makers go through it like water).

I had some locally grown and processed chicken breasts that I had purchased at Byron Center Meats (not organic, unfortunately, but definitely not CAFO and from local small town farmers). So I sweet-talked DH into using the srirachi/honey mixture as a glaze and grilling the chicken on his new smoker/grill.

I also had a bunch of kale that I had chopped and sauteed and frozen from my summer CSA share. I thawed them and sauteed in a skillet with 1 T of sesame oil and 1 T of honey and 1 T of sriracha sauce until wilted. You could also substitute any green here (spinach, kale, swiss chard).

The verdict: When you first  lift the chicken up to your mouth, the smell of the chili sauce warns you that this is going to be hot. But then when you take a bite, you taste the heat of the sriracha and then you taste the sweetness of the caramelized honey. You start to think hey, this isn’t so bad, and tastes awesome, but then you realize that your lips are on fire. So you take a bite of kale and it cuts the heat. Overall, it’s a tasty dish – but only try it if you can take the heat.

The recipe for FJ:

Spicy Sweet Chicken and Greens

Serves 4

6 tsp sriracha sauce (look for the red bottle with the rooster)

6 tsp honey (raw honey is best as it contains phytonutrients and enzymes and affects blood sugar less than other sugars or pasteurized/processed honey)

4 chicken breasts (8 ounces each)

1 bunch of greens (collards, kale, Swiss chard, or spinach)

1 T sesame oil (can also use olive oil)

Directions: Mix the sriracha sauce and honey, reserving about 1 T for the greens. Use the remaining mixture as a glaze for the chicken.

Chop the greens into bite-size pieces and saute in 1 T sesame oil. When wilted, add the remaining sriracha/honey mixture.  Cook a few minutes to heat through, and until it’s the texture you want (I like mine steamed but not mushy; other people prefer more of a paste texture to their greens).

Nutrition info per serving:

Calories		247.7
Total Fat		5.6 g
	Saturated Fat	1.0 g
	Polyunsaturated Fat	2.1 g
	Monounsaturated Fat	1.7 g
Cholesterol		65.7 mg
Sodium		208.9 mg
Potassium		738.9 mg
Total Carbohydrate		20.9 g
	Dietary Fiber	3.9 g
	Sugars	12.3 g
Protein		29.9 g

Vitamin A	531.7 %
Vitamin B-12	7.2 %
Vitamin B-6	44.7 %
Vitamin C	135.6 %
Vitamin D	0.0 %
Vitamin E	9.7 %
Calcium	15.3 %
Copper	17.7 %
Folate	7.5 %
Iron	14.5 %
Magnesium	16.8 %
Manganese	42.0 %
Niacin	68.4 %
Pantothenic Acid	10.3 %
Phosphorus	27.7 %
Riboflavin	14.4 %
Selenium	31.4 %
Thiamin	12.2 %
Zinc	9.3 %