Well, where do you start when you have been asked to write about something you have been enjoying for most of your life?  Naturally, you start at the beginning.   My family immigrated to Canada in 1970 when I was four years old.  Food memories didn’t really start for me until the mid-70’s, and when they did I distinctly remember smelling and then tasting Jerk Chicken.  As a Jamaican native, chicken is something you’ll eat almost every week of your life.

Chicken is a staple in most homes across Canada.  I’ve witnessed the ingenious ways people cook with chicken.  From Fricassee to Jerk to Cordon Bleu, chicken is incredibly versatile.  Mature chickens generally can grow from 2-5 kgs easily feeding a family of four.  I like the fact that there are two distinct types of meat in one bird; the breast is the white meat and the dark meat comes from the legs and thighs.  For best results roast chicken with its skin on and use simple seasonings such as salt and pepper.  It is so delicious, full of flavour and an ideal way to eat healthy.  If you want to be more adventurous, butterfly the breast and stuff it with sundried tomatoes and a bloomy rind cheese such as Brie. The traditional time honoured classic is Chicken Cordon Bleu filled with ham and Emmental cheese.  Dark meat tends to be easier to cook with despite being an underrated cut and often not the first option.  I’m a big fan of using dark meat for JerkChicken.  It tastes great especially when you try it with my special jerk marinade.

When I began working professionally in a kitchen I was expected to hone my culinary skills with poultry preparation.  This may seem like a fairly benign action to take but not in the traditional culinary world.  I started cooking in the 1990s and to become a serious professional chef it was expected to learn the classics like Coq Au Vin (which of course I did).  That being said I also made time to fiddle with recipes from my childhood and yes that did include attempts at KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken).  My grandmother was a force to be reckoned with setting some pretty high standards and fortunately her influence helped me along.  Every chance I had I would experiment and would test on my fellow chef friends.  Believe me when I say this, I made some great friends with that fried chicken. 

It was in 1988 when I fell for another part of the chicken - the wings.  There aren’t many people who wouldn’t devour 20-30 of those bad boys (I know many people who also wouldn't necessarily admit to that).  I would often find myself frequenting this relatively well-known hot spot for wings in mid-town Toronto.  I even took my wife there on one of our first dates (don’t tell her this but it was a bit of a test; if she didn’t like wings we weren’t going to get married).  Well, maybe that was a bit of a stretch, but needless to say she enjoyed them as much as I did and I’m happy to say we’re going into our 14^th year of marriage.  This just goes to show you that from gastronomic Haute Cuisine to casual pub dining to a Sunday family dinner, chicken is a staple and is something that will be on menus as long as Canadian farmers and farms continue to raise them.

Outside of wings and fried chicken, my wife and girls absolutely love whole roasted chicken, especially on chilly Fall or winter Sundays.  My favourite stuffing includes a mirepoix (mixture of onions, carrots and celery), half a head of garlic and lemon rub; the skin rubbed with a little olive oil, and sprinkled with kosher salt, black pepper, rosemary and thyme;  and roasted in a 350°F ( 177°C) oven.  My girls adore roasted potatoes and asparagus to accompany Dad’s chicken.  It’s quick and easy and we get to do that thing we love most: bonding as a family over Sunday dinner.   And that, like chicken, is a wonderful thing.

Most of us are familiar with the urban legend that has plagued KFC over the years about the chicken with six wings 9 legs, no feathers, no beak and enormous breasts, so genetically modified that they can hardly walk. The variations on this theme are seemingly endless.

This so-called Frankenchicken started as a random email simply titled, Boycott KFC.

Some of the emails claim that these findings were a result of a study conducted by the University of New Hampshire. Under those circumstances, why wouldn't you believe it? The university reacted by publishing a rebuttal on its website. Colette Janson-Sand, Associate Professor of Nutrition at the University of New Hampshire, said that her department fielded a flock of phone calls about the "chicken that isn't chicken" rumour – a few of which she described as "hysterical."

Besides the fact that these genetic modifications are beyond the scope of modern science, if you start to question the claims in the email, you'll begin to see how preposterous it really is. The email claims that KFC is not really chicken at all but a "genetically manipulated organism" that is so unlike a chicken that the government has forbidden KFC to use chicken in their name – hence the name change from Kentucky Fried Chicken to KFC in 1991.

The reality is that KFC – like any other chicken restaurant in Canada – does not raise its own chickens. Farmers do – not mad scientists, but farmers. And those farmers raise normal sized, two legged, two winged, fully beaked, hormone-free, fully feathered chickens.

And KFC changed its name because in 1990, the Commonwealth of Kentucky in the United States was so debt-ridden that it decided to trademark the name ‘Kentucky’, so that anyone using the word in a name would have to pay licensing fees. KFC refused, as did a number of other companies, like the Kentucky Derby.

Nobody knows why these rumours start and why they hold true for so long. Maybe they serve the purpose of keeping consumers on their toes and making sure we do our job properly, by raising healthy chickens in good conditions.

Sources:

http://www.snopes.com/horrors/food/kfc.asp http://www.snopes.com/lost/kfc.asp

http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/fooddrink/a/kfc_chicken.htm

Grilling in the Fall and Winter?  You bet!

Guess who’s coming to chicken for a while? Rob Rainford, Food Network celebrity, chef and cooking instructor with a world-renowned reputation, has joined with Chicken Farmers of Canada (CFC) to share his cooking secrets, thoughts, insights and some new flavours for the meat that he loves working with the most.

Over the next few months on www.chicken.ca, Chef Rainford will create 10 tasty new chicken recipes, write sensational chicken blogs, and participate in a series of interviews that will give chicken lovers across the country a glimpse into the man behind the “Q”.

Throughout the rest of this year, Chef Rainford will be featuring recipes like Peri-Peri Chicken and BBQ Chicken Calzones; he’ll also be adding extra-special seasonal recipes, too, like Christmas Truffle Chicken, New Year’s Foie Gras Chicken and Scary Chicken Cordon Bleu Fingers for Halloween.

With his natural charisma, Chef Rainford’s over 20 years of experience with grilling, teaching and working as a television personality have shown Canadians and people around the world to create dishes with flair and to add their own, unique twists to traditional dishes.

We can’t wait to show you what it’s all about!

Stay tuned!

About Rob Rainford:

Who knows where talent comes from? Is it nature or nurture, innate or learned? For Rob Rainford it just feels as though he was Born 2 Grill™. He has always loved cooking and the mysteries that unravel when working with various foods and cultural themes; his one consistent theme has always been his love of the grill and his passion for BBQ.

Rob Rainford is a Canadian chef with a world renowned reputation. Born in Saint Andrew Parish, Jamaica November 30, 1966, he moved to Canada with his family when he was three. Rainford enrolled in culinary school at George Brown College in 1994 and after completing his formal training, began his professional career.

After hosting Licence to Grill seen on Food Network Canada, Discovery Home in the U.S., Asian Food Channel across Asia and now in syndication, Rainford has spent the last two years quietly perfecting his signature style The Rainford Method and is now preparing to unveil his new brand to the world.

With a new television show in the works and cookbook Born 2 Grill™ being released across North America in spring 2012 the future looks bright for this talented Chef. “I have a lot of exciting projects lined up for 2012 which I am working on right now…it’s all moving along very well,” says Rainford.

Don’t be mistaken by Rainford’s success. Even though he’s seen on television around the world on Licence to Grill and has cooked in some of the finest establishments, he feels that as a chef he’s “always on a perpetual learning curve”, and is humbled by the talent around him. Now an instructor at his Alma Mater George Brown College, he is sharing his knowledge as a world class Chef with the chefs of tomorrow, Rainford is beginning to hit his stride and is very thankful for the opportunity to continually explore the mystery that is food.

Sorry I haven’t written lately.  Between life at work chasing deadlines, and life at home chasing an uber-tall, uber-fast 2 year old, this summer has FLOWN by and suddenly, it’s Fall and I haven’t written a single blog about my bouncing baby little terror.

So, here’s what you need to know to catch up:  He’s two – he’s over 3.5 feet tall and weighs about 35 pounds.  He’s smart, he’s starting to talk and he’s FAST.  He never sits down for long, and has his own page of apps on our iPad that he knows how to use better than I do.

And can he eat! We stopped the breastfeeding (a mutual decision) at about 22 months – pretty good, considering how challenging it was at the beginning!  Every so often, he likes to be fed, but mostly, he likes to try to jab his fork into whatever is on his plate – hysterical when it comes to cereal, less so if your hand gets too close to the plate.  We’ve given up on the dull, rounded-tip forks for little guys, and moved to small salad forks for big ones.  The fussiness comes and goes, too.  We can generally get him to eat anything – and we know he eats TONS at daycare, where our provider makes him wonderful, nutritious meals, with a taste of every continent, it seems.

But sometimes, he likes to revert to old staples.  Who doesn’t like comfort food?  Among his favourites are grilled cheese, and macaroni and cheese. So, the challenge comes in balancing the keeping of his favourites, adding more protein, pulling back on the cheese a little and ensuring a wider range of foods.

Here’s what I’ve been doing on the chicken front:

• Adding cubed chicken and tomatoes to the macaroni and cheese
• Adding chicken and broccoli to the grilled cheese sandwich
• Making a cheesy dip for dunking slices of chicken and cooked carrots
• Making homemade pizza – with rainbow colours (veggies, shhh!)
• Serving grilled chicken with sweet potato fries

The great thing about chicken is that it can be included in almost any dish to make it just a little more healthy – to round out the food groups. Now that I’m not puree-ing anything anymore, it’s so much easier to just use my imagination and ensure that he’s getting the right amounts of the right foods.

I got my reward last night.  We were super late getting home, so we opted to stop at the grocery store and pick up a rotisserie chicken.  I got home and all I had were some ‘oven-bake’ french fries and grape tomatoes. I drained the chicken and popped it into the oven to cook off some of the excessive moisture, while I shoved some fries into the toaster oven and sliced up some tomatoes (he’s still young enough to warrant slicing them).  He ate all his chicken, left some fries and asked for more tomatoes.

During the meal, a friend came over, fast food in hand (there was gravy, lots and lots of gravy) and tried to tempt my little man away from his dinner.  Little Prince took one taste, spit it out (on said friend’s plate, no less) and went back to his own meal.

Nice…

While I like heating up leftovers for dinner or enjoying them for lunch the next day, I also like to add them into pita bread, Greek wraps or any other bread I’m in the mood for. I don’t like to limit a good sandwich to the usual lunch meat from the deli, although I do enjoy a good ham and Swiss cheese sandwich from time to time.

I also feel good knowing that I’m not throwing out any leftovers. Here are some great ways to enjoy leftovers in a sandwich and if you have a large family, why not double up these recipes and pack up lunches for everyone!

Mediterranean Shish Kebab with Grainy Mustard Aioli Sauce

Remove the chicken from the skewers and stuff them in whole wheat pita pockets with any of the leftover vegetables. If you prefer, add your own favourite vegetables like lettuce, tomato, onions and cucumber and some of the leftover aioli sauce or mayonnaise.

Meatloaf Makeover with Chipotle Ketchup

Enjoy a slice of this leftover meatloaf served between two slices of toasted whole grain bread. Make a unique sauce by adding a little mayonnaise to the chipotle ketchup and top it all off with your choice of vegetables. I would use alfalfa sprouts, tomatoes and some cheddar cheese. Yum!

Village Greek Salad with Chicken

Here’s a recipe that is perfect served in a Greek pita the next day. It really doesn’t need more than that but if you want to kick it up a notch, try adding some tzatziki.

Curried Chicken Salad with Peaches

This is such a great recipe that is bursting with flavour. Serve it in a pita the next day just the way it is!

Most Canadians eat chicken at least once a week, but what do you REALLY know about chicken?  Here are a few things that might surprise you.

They’re secretly dinosaurs.

Like most birds, chickens share a great deal of DNA with their thunder lizard ancestors, however, according to a July 2010 story in the Times & Transcript, recent DNA analysis shows that T-Rex and chickens are such extremely close cousins biologically that “science has no choice but to acknowledge that birds are, in reality, dinosaurs, not just critters evolved from them.” In fact, these genetic ties are so strong that one scientist (who was also the prime science advisor for the movie Jurassic Park) is currently working to get funding to create a brand new dinosaur, starting from a chicken embryo, that he has dubbed a “chickenosaurus.”

They came before the egg.

Sorry, Eggs.  British scientists, who evidently have far too much time on their hands, used a supercomputer and over 5 million core hours of computer simulations to answer the question.  Studying the proteins only found within a chicken’s ovaries and its effect on creating the hard shell of an egg overnight, they determined that only a chicken could produce a chicken egg, and therefore, it had to have come first.

There are hundreds of breeds of chicken.

In North America, there are only a few breeds raised for food, and a few raised for eggs, but across the world there are hundreds of breeds – some that look very much like the iconic chicken we all know, and some that look like vultures, some that are different colours, and even one called a Silkie, that has dark skin and looks oddly like a poodle.  Then again, chickens probably think humans all look the same, too.

Chickens are omnivores

It’s true that chickens raised in Canada are entirely grain-fed, but it’s also true that while they love their veggies, chickens are meat-eaters as well.  In fact, without proper protein in their diet, chickens will look to supplement their diet wherever they can – even if it means attacking one another.  On the farm, chickens get their protein from their feed either in the form of grain or bone meal, while also snacking on the occasional bug wherever they can find it.

Canadian chickens are not raised with hormones.

Hopefully, if there were any facts here that you already knew, this was the one.  Sadly, this is a question that we still find ourselves answering, even though feeding, injecting or otherwise administering hormones to chickens has been illegal in Canada since the 60s.  So, if you see a label on chicken that reads “Hormone Free,” it doesn’t mean that the others are not.  All chicken in Canada is hormone-free.

OTTAWA - In observing World Food Day, the Canadian Federation of Agriculture (CFA) stresses the importance of the National Food Strategy in optimizing our food system to meet food supply requirements - at home and abroad - and encourages continued industry-government collaboration in this regard.  

Are you hosting a Halloween party this year? If so, you’ll want to read this blog!

Well folks, it’s that time of year again!  The nights are getting longer and the air is cool and crisp leaving us all in a little bit of a funk knowing that the cold weather is on its way.  But with the cooler weather also comes one of the best days of the year, Halloween!  Although Halloween is really a time for kids to dress up and go trick or treating, many adults like to take advantage of this day to host or attend Halloween costume parties.  I mean really, what’s more fun than seeing your friends and family dressed up in costume? I love costume parties, especially the themed ones such as the worst 80’s costume or dress up as your favourite 1950’s movie star.  Whatever the theme is, if you are hosting a party then you will need to feed your guests.  So here are some ideas on how to use some of the great recipes from our website and give them a Halloween twist, simply by changing their names to something SPOOKY!

1. Witchy Wings – using the Orange and Pecan Hot Wings recipe – these are great because they can be cooked in batches and kept warm in the oven.
2. Ghostly Eyeballs – using the Creamy Swedish-style Meatballs recipe – this recipe is made using a crock pot.  Keep a few shot glasses filled with toothpicks near the crock pot, that way your guests can plop some meatballs on a plate and use the toothpicks to eat them!
3. Mummified Chicken – using the Salad Rolls recipe – if any of your guests are watching their waist lines, they will truly enjoy this healthy low-carb recipe.
4. Monster Sludge – using the Hot Spinach & Chicken Dip (Slow Cooker) recipe - this dip can be served with raw vegetables of your choice, pita wedges, corn chips, sliced baguette and crackers.  It’s really up to you!

These are just a few ideas but now that I’ve got your creative juices flowing, you may want to think up some spooky names for some of your favourite hors d’oeuvres.  Have fun!

When the weather starts to get cold, there’s something very heart warming about a hot chicken pie. These delicious chicken pierecipes are the perfect way to use up those chicken leftovers.

Chilean Chicken Pie with Sweet Corn Crust

This tasty chicken pie has a simple corn topping and includes interesting flavours from the capers, cinnamon, cilantro, cumin and raisins. Leftover cooked chicken is used but you can also cook fresh chicken breast or thighs for this dish.

Chicken Pot Pie

This simple chicken pot pie is chock full of vegetables and freezes well so why not make a few?

Chicken Pot Pie II

This recipe takes a French twist by using cream, leeks, Dijon mustard, mushrooms and white wine and is covered with a golden puff pastry making it the ultimate comfort food.

Chicken Wild Rice Mushroom Phyllo Pie

This healthy chicken pot pie is a must try! The combination of wild rice, mushrooms and kale topped with a flaky phyllo crust give this recipe a unique twist.

Check out our recipes at www.chicken.ca for more ideas on how to use up those chicken leftovers.

\While most people cringe at the thought of eating chicken livers, they are actually pretty tasty and also extremely nutritious. It’s all in the way they are prepared.

Chicken livers are high in protein and potassium and contain plenty of vitamins A, C, B6 and B12.  They also contain minerals like copper, manganese, niacin, zinc and their iron content is very high, making them ideal for preventing anemia.

It doesn’t end there. Chicken livers also contain CoQ10 which is important for cardiovascular function and they are one of the best known sources of folic acid.

Have I convinced you to give them another try?  In this how-to video, we show you how to make a chicken liver pâté that is so tasty it will hopefully convert you.

This year, hubby and I will be spending Thanksgiving together; just the two of us.  While I enjoy the big family turkey meal, mashed potatoes and all the other fixings, it’s just too much for two people.  I only have so much room in my freezer and there are just so many leftovers two people can eat, so this year, I’m preparing a roast chicken.

I love the idea of a roast chicken because I know there’ll be just enough leftovers to make hot chicken sandwiches for dinner the following day!

Here are some great recipes for roast chicken that you can also find on our web site.  I’ll be making the roast chicken with brown lentil and winter squash stuffing but all of these recipes look amazing.  It was a tough choice!

Roast Chicken with Outside Stuffing – The sweet combination of apples, sweet potatoes, brown sugar, cinnamon and ginger make this the perfect Fall recipe, especially for Thanksgiving!

Whole Roasted Chicken with Sage Butter and Maple Walnut Stuffing – Who needs air freshener?  Just rub down a whole chicken with sage butter and stick it in the over.  The addition of walnuts to the stuffing gives it a nice crunchy texture.

Roast Chicken with Wild Rice Stuffing – This recipe may use simple ingredients but don’t be fooled, it is loaded with flavour.  The wild rice stuffing keeps this dish healthy and delicious.

Roasted Chicken with Cranberry Rice Pilaf – this herb butter roasted chicken packs a punch of flavour.  By adding brandy to the stuffing, this dish becomes the perfect cold weather comfort meal.

Here’s giving thanks to our Canadian chicken farmers!

Wishing you all a very happy Thanksgiving!

Hockey season has started and in my house that means two things, hungry guys and beer! It also means a phone call to the local pizza joint which is fine once in a while but it can get a little expensive so I’d rather prepare some munchies for everyone.  I like to vary things, so on one night I’ll make nachos and on another night I’ll cook up a big batch of chicken wings or chilli. 

So far, the guys have been more than happy with any food I’ve prepared, especially because it is served with ice cold beer.

During our last hockey night get together, I prepared a nacho dip using ground chicken.  None of them could tell that it was “healthy”, they just gobbled it up as I watched them do so with a smile on my face.

The recipe is super simple to make as you’ll see in this how-to video.

Next hockey game, I’m serving two different chicken dishes. These almond crusted chicken fingers with sweet potato plum sauce and these maple wings for the guys (how Canadian is that?) with a vegetable tray.  Let’s not forget the beer!

Last week I attended the ShesConnected Conference at the Sheraton Centre Hotel.  Actually, CFC was one of the sponsors of the event and I was there as a representative.

There are conferences catering specifically to top digital women and bloggers.  There are also others that address the needs of both brands and agencies. The ShesConnected Conference is a hybrid of the two, with the intention of bringing brands and digital women together, with the intent of seeing what they can learn from each other.

As sponsors, CFC was involved in a great deal of pre-event promotion, helping women find out more and more about chicken and how it can be a great choice for their families.  During the event, we were featured in the exhibition hall, where we were going to get to meet over 200 digital women and find out how CFC can build relationships and find new ways to get our messages across.

I flew to Toronto on Wednesday afternoon and called it an early night.  Thursday morning, I was up with the birds to get our booth set up and to make sure everything was ready to go before the event.  While setting up, I had the opportunity to meet some of the other sponsors who are also stepping it up by using social media as a way to reach out to people.

The morning started a little slowly but by early afternoon the room was buzzing.  I had an opportunity to meet most of the participants and ask them about their blogs and websites.  Among the participants were mommy bloggers, food bloggers, make up and beauty trend followers and women who blog about important social and personal issues. There was a powerful energy in the room.

Social media continues to bring people together; it’s all about sharing information.  At this conference, it was about women inspiring other women through their stories, good or bad, or sharing the latest fashions, trends and recipes.

Social media was once used as a primary means of helping people stay in touch with family and friends, the trends for brands are quickly rising.  Recent surveys have shown that women are now using social media at a growing rate to follow trends and ideas, find ways to manage their homes and learn about products.  Over 80% of Canadian women have made purchases and choices based on recommendations made by a blog.  This, of course, creates a so-called “halo effect”, because the influence of these blogs, tweets and Facebook posts moves well beyond the original document.

Panel discussions were held throughout the conference.  One of the most popular sessions was with keynote speaker Elisa Camhort Page, co-founder of Blogher, the world’s largest online community of women who blog.  Elisa spoke about what brands want from bloggers and digital women.  The day continued with other topics, including:

• Product Reviews vs. Blog Tours vs. Brand Ambassador Programs
• Social Media Rock Stars: Veteran, New and Rising Stars
• What Brands Want From Digital Women
• What is a Blogger Worth?
• Rate Cards, Guidelines, and Disclosure
• The 10 Rules of the Road, Putting it All Together

The feedback CFC received about its website, Facebook page and Twitter posts was amazing; people were really supportive of our growing online presence, giving us all kinds of, kudos, tips and advice– we had a chance to really connect with these top digital women and learn more about the kinds of information they want from us.  It also gave us a chance to answer all kinds of questions about chicken and chicken farming. 

We really valued the chance to attend this event and we look forward to keeping our online presence growing!