Jamaican Jerk chicken... crock pot style

I really should not be writing this.

I'm in the midst of a very big project, I'm supposed to be working on a LONG self-paced training session, I've got scripts to read, and a newsletter to lay out.

Sigh.

But I had to share this recipe with you.

My family recently moved to a nice new neighborhood, and my husband had the good fortune to try out Zankou chicken. He had never eaten hummus, or tabbouleh, or anything like that, and I got jealous because I was missing all sorts of ethnic foods.

First, I want to mention that if you do want to try out some more ethnic recipes, try out Raman Prasad's cookbook here. I've been meaning to do a proper review but my food tolerances have only recently gotten to the point where I can actually try some of the recipes I really want to try.

But anyway, I started poking around on the Internet and I stumbled across Jamaican Jerk chicken.

I read several recipes before deciding to attempt it. I made it at first in a skillet without marinating it first, because I didn't have time for that. It was OK.

But then the long traditional marination time struck me as something useful for a crock pot.

Of course it's not barbecued like true Jamaican Jerk chicken would be, but it's still pretty good.

The interesting thing is, my son LOVES this chicken. It's spicy as all get out, but then I realized that most of the heat is in the sauce. In the crock pot, this dish becomes extremely saucy. So as long as I went easy on the sauce when I served it to my guy, he was fine and ended up eating three bowls!

By the way, if you've never gotten smoked paprika, you are missing out. It's delicious. I buy the big McCormick brand at Costco. It's not spicy but it helps to impart a smoky flavor. Yum!

JAMAICAN JERK CROCK POT CHICKEN

4-6 fresh chicken thighs with bones (about 3 pounds)
6 cloves garlic, thrown in whole
1-2 onions, chopped
2 tbsp smoked paprika
1 tbsp oil
1 tbsp original Tabasco (only the original is SCD legal)
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp nutmeg
2 tbsp honey
1-2 tsp allspice (I did not have this)

Put all ingredients in the crock with the chicken on the bottom. Cook on high for about six hours. Done!

Personally I think putting some spinach in the crock would taste really good, but there wasn't enough room in my crock to do that (I have a 4 quart one).

As I mentioned, I did not have allspice. Until recently I thought allspice was a blend of spices. Well, it isn't! It's a single spice and as we know, single spices without additives are legal. Allspice is a traditional jerk chicken spice.

Oh, and one more thing -- you'll probably need to add more salt at the end to the individual bowls of food. When you cook anything for a long time with salt added, the salty taste fades, even though the sodium content of the food remains the same. So you end up adding way more salt than you need to if you add a lot at the start of cooking.

Enjoy!

Math is hard

I know that many of my posts seem to be about medical studies, or about how grains are just flat out bad for you.

I think it's important that people know that studies lie, and that the information that's out there right now -- the information that mainstream doctors are using to treat people in this country -- is not necessarily accurate.

I think that's an essential part of starting to understand just why the SCD works for people, and why it's one of the healthiest diets around.

So bear with me. *grin*

This article from the Fat Head blog explains what kind of scare tactics researchers like to employ while talking about their latest study results. Have an excerpt:

Multiplication and division can produce big, impressive-sounding percentages that are in fact nearly meaningless. Here’s an example that helped enshrine the “cholesterol kills” theory:

After a major study with the acronym MRFIT was concluded, the researchers announced that people with high cholesterol were over 400% more likely to die of heart disease. Ohmigosh!! Get me into an Ornish program, now! I must reduce my cholesterol!

That’s a big, scary number. Let’s see how they came up with it.

Over the course of the study, 0.3% of the men whose cholesterol was below 170 died from heart disease. Meanwhile, 1.3% of the men whose cholesterol was over 265 died of heart disease. Over 265?! Dead man walking! Buy your casket now and save!

And in fact, since 1.3/0.3 = 4.33, you could say that 1.3 is over 400% higher.

Now flip the numbers and look at the actual difference. In the low cholesterol group, 99.7% did not die from a heart attack. Among the very high cholesterol group, 98.7% did not die from a heart attack. That’s a difference of 1.0%. In other words, if you go up the scale from low cholesterol to very high cholesterol (nearly 100 points higher), the real difference is that an extra 1 in 100 men died of heart disease. Not quite such a scary number, is it?

and one more quote regarding statins...

"In the study cited by Pfizer, men with known risk factors for heart disease took either Lipitor or a placebo. In the placebo group, barely more than 3% had a heart attack. In the Lipitor group, 2% had a heart attack. Use division, and you get that impressive 36% reduction. But the difference, once again, is 1 in 100, or 1%. Boy, that’s worth giving your liver a major smack-down.

And by the way, the difference in the heart-attack rate for women who take statins and women who don’t is: zero. You can multiply that difference, divide it, square it, triangle it, stick it inside a trapezoid, whatever … you still can’t come up with a reason for women to take statins - ever."

We need grains ... or do we?

Dr. Eades has a great blog post regarding a very interesting paper.

Nutrition and health in agriculturalists and hunter-gatherers

Send this one to a friend the next time they start lauding that laughable food pyramid again.

Sweet and healthy

I know I haven't been updating much. I'm in the midst of moving, and I am training for a certain certification at work, so you will all have to just bear with me, I'm afraid. :)

But I had something to share with you anyway!

We just got the TV hooked up in our new place, and my husband and I were watching American Idol. During a commercial break was a promo for the news following. The pert broadcaster simply said, "Sweet AND healthy? Details at 11."

At the time, I was eating mostly thawed frozen strawberries out of a mug. In fact, I had a strawberry speared on a fork as she said this. I turned to my husband, fork in hand. "Hmm, sweet AND healthy...I can't imagine," I said.

He said, "Don't get smart."

red meat? yes please!

If you're a little worried about all the negative press red meat consumption has been getting, stop by Mark's Daily Apple and check out his piece, appropriately titled The Red Scare.

tired

There are so many different things I could post in here, sometimes it gets kind of overwhelming.

It's not really a recipe blog, or a diet blog, or a rheumatoid arthritis blog. It's not strictly an autism blog, or a colitis blog.

It's just... an SCD blog, I guess. Our journey.

With that, I have an update on my condition.

I'm currently taking doxycycline to combat my rheumatoid arthritis. Antibiotic therapy is not widely used, but the research behind it is interesting to be sure.

I've been on the antibiotic now for almost three months. My doctor went over my lab results with me, which were drawn after one month on the antibiotic.

At the time, I was in a lot of pain and discomfort. But all of my disease activity markers... are trending downward. Also, I'm able to tolerate more advanced foods, like raw fruits and veggies in small amounts. Yay!

But, if all of these markers are looking good, why do I still feel bad? My wrist is still all swelled up. So are my hands.

The hypothesis is, I'm experiencing a Herxheimer reaction.

In simpler terms, I'm going through a massive round of die-off of bad bacteria -- which pretty much everyone on SCD can identify with.

So! My doctor thinks I should stay the course, because the medication is actually working.

And contrary to popular belief, you CAN be on medication and do SCD at the same time. Now, many medications have ingredients that you probably should steer clear of, but you can either choose to take them (which will delay or slow healing) or you can get them compounded at a compounding pharmacy.

So. I am doing OK, even if I am in a lot of pain right now.

I have another recipe to post for you when I have a bit more energy, I promise.

And man, I just can't stop making pickles!! They taste so awesome!