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Our friend Marc is a quintessential foodie and an avid home cook and baker. He likes to be very precise in his cooking and baking, and will spend considerable time perfecting a recipe. He doesn’t follow any specific diet and eats anything he likes, which is no longer the case for me. Some of Marc’s recipes I can enjoy as is, like his super easy roasted chicken recipe, while others I am inspired to modify, like his pecan cookies!

This recipe was given to Marc by his late friend Carl. Carl got the idea from one of his chef friends and refined it. Marc roasts his chicken without salt. We like ours with salt and sometimes add smoked paprika. It is very good just with salt.

These days, I’m all about quick and easy cooking. Or quick and easy alternatives to cooking myself, like buying a roasted chicken from the supermarket when I’m short on time. Well, Marc kept telling us about his homemade roasted chicken, and how easy it is to make, and then he invited us over to taste it. We were sold!

Easy Roasted Chicken Recipe

Plus, this way you can buy a pastured chicken, which is a healthier option, and make it yourself, instead of eating chickens that are fed corn, soy, wheat, etc. (aka “vegetarian-fed”). Even cage-free, organic chickens you buy at natural food stores are typically fed a vegetarian diet, which really means a grain-based diet. Chickens are actually omnivores like us and will eat bugs and small animals if left to their own devices!

But back to that easy roasted chicken recipe. I’ve tried fancier (more complicated) versions of roasting a chicken at home, which involved spreading butter and freshly-chopped herbs under the chicken’s skin. Don’t get me wrong, the chicken tasted great, but who has the time? Nowadays, I leave these sorts of recipes for the holidays or leisurely weekends, which don’t happen very often.

We’ve modified Marc’s chicken recipe to make it more to our liking. It’s a 2-ingredient recipe that tastes absolutely delicious — think meat falling off the bone and yummy broth filled with collagen protein. How about that! It’s also National Chicken Month, so I’m paying a tribute to that. Enjoy!

Easy Roasted Chicken Pieces

Ingredients

1 (4-5 pounds) chicken, (preferably pastured)
Salt to taste (I use Himalayan pink salt for its mineral content)

Directions

  1. Preheat the oven to 500° F.
  2. Remove chicken’s neck and organs packet, if there is one.
  3. Rinse the chicken in cold water and pat dry.
  4. Cover the chicken with salt on all sides.
  5. Place the chicken, breast up, in an enameled cast iron pot / Dutch oven. Ensure the lid is closed tightly.
  6. Bake for 45 minutes (adjust cooking time slightly if the bird is less than 4 or more than 5 pounds).
  7. Remove the pot from the oven and let stand for 90 minutes without removing the lid.
  8. Remove the chicken from the pot and cut into pieces on a cutting board.

This easy roasted chicken recipe turns out juicy and tender. It’s extremely easy to make; the longest part is the cooking time. Next, I’ll have to try this in an Instant Pot® in my never-ending quest to develop quick and easy recipes!

TIP:
Feel free to store the chicken in the refrigerator inside the enameled cast iron pot / Dutch oven. That’s the beauty of these pots — you can store your food in them!

VARIATION:
Play with other seasonings and spices as you like. Marc actually only uses freshly-ground black pepper instead of salt. Feel free to use Italian seasoning, herbs de Provence, smoked paprika, curry seasoning, etc.

Looking for more juicy chicken recipes? Check these out.

One day we discovered lamb breast at a grocery store, and life was never the same again. I must admit that I love fatty, bone-in cuts of meat! The lamb breast cut is just that. Joel tried roasting it several different ways, with and without marinading the meat first, and finally perfected an easy and delicious roasted lamb breast recipe for you to enjoy. This recipe has only 4 ingredients, so it’s quick to throw together. The longest part is roasting.

In my pre-low-carb-high-fat days, I craved fatty cuts of meat — beef shanks, pork ribs, chicken thighs, beef short ribs, chicken wings, — you name it, but we didn’t eat them very often. We were fat-phobic because the low-fat trend was alive and well, and it still is, but not in our household!

I would painfully cut off and leave the yummy, fatty parts of the meat on my plate. I really wanted to eat them — my body was craving them — and sometimes I did, feeling guilty as hell afterwards. Joel was admittedly more fat-phobic than me because he’s an all-American boy. In the Soviet Union, we preferred fattier cuts of meat like dark chicken and pork belly, and we never threw away chicken skin.

Roasted Lamb Breast

In fact, I once heard an Armenian man from the former Soviet Union complain that American lamb was too lean. He would literally add pork fat onto the skewers when grilling lamb kabobs, so that the fat would drip on the coals and add more smokiness to the meat. Those were amazingly delicious kabobs!

If you’re following a Keto or Low Carb High Fat (LCHF) lifestyle, then you’re not afraid of fat, so the lamb breast is right up your alley. Fattier cuts of meat also tend to be less expensive. In any case, this roasted lamb breast recipe is sugar-free, dairy-free, lectin-free, low-carb, and Paleo. Don’t be afraid of fat and add some deliciousness into your diet!

Ingredients

2.5-3.5 pounds lamb breast, cut into 4 pieces
1 teaspoon garlic powder
2 teaspoons dried thyme
1/4 teaspoon salt (I use Himalayan pink salt for its mineral content)
Chimichurri sauce for serving (optional)

Directions

  1. Pre-heat the oven to 315° F.
  2. Cover all sides of the lamb breast pieces with salt, garlic powder, and dried thyme.
  3. Transfer the lamb to a roasting pan, fat side up, and cover the roasting pan with aluminum foil. Bake for about 2 hours.
  4. Cover a cooking sheet with aluminum foil. Remove the lamb from the roasting pan and place onto the cooking sheet.
  5. Turn up the oven to 450° F.
  6. Bake the lamb breast pieces, fat side up, for another 20 minutes, or until the meat gets browned and crispy on top.

NOTE:
The reason for removing the lamb breast pieces from the roasting pan and placing them onto a cooking sheet is because there will be lots of melted fat in the roasting pan. When you increase the oven’s temperature to 450° F, you don’t want the roasting pan to catch on fire 🙂

VARIATION:
Try this roasted lamb breast recipe with dried rosemary instead of thyme.

Looking for easy roasting recipes? Try my Prime Rib Roast recipe. It has only 2 ingredients!

Joel loves savory snacks such as chips. He’s been known to eat a whole bag of tortilla chips in one sitting (in his pre-low-carb days, of course!) So, to find a savory, crunchy snack that is low-carb and isn’t fried in an industrial vegetable oil is a real win. The newly-launched 4505 Meats Pork Cracklins was one of my top low-carb finds at Natural Products Expo West 2018.

These crunchy, salty pork curls are Paleo-certified, grain-free, gluten-free, dairy-free, lectin-free, sugar-free, zero-carb, Keto, made with humanely-raised pork that is free of hormones and antibiotics, fried in rendered pork fat (yum!), and are quite addictive.

We once thought of buying pork rinds (chicharrones) at a Mexican grocery store, but they were fried in soybean oil and had MSG. Yuck! Instead, we whipped up homemade guacamole and served it with these delicious, fried pork curly Qs. I personally like the sea salt flavor, which is lectin-free. If you like pork rinds, you must give these healthier pork curls a try!

4505 Meats Pork Cracklins Zero Carb Snack

Besides loving 4505 Meats products, something else that I love is the fact that the company was founded by a chef and butcher who is committed to whole animal utilization and sustainability. The popular nose-to-tail trend is a good thing, in my opinion. I respect chefs and butchers who find creative ways to utilize all parts of the animal. Why waste pork skins?

These new Cracklins are available on Amazon.com, the 4505 Meats website, and will be available in grocery stores this summer. 4505 Meats also offers a line of pork rinds (chicharrones), but these new pork curls are heartier, crunchier, more flavor-forward porkalicious rinds.

Try this zero-carb snack and let me know if you like it as much as we do. I plan to serve these pork cracklins with guacamole when I host Mexican-inspired dinner parties. Way better than chips 🙂

Although most people celebrate Easter by serving a ham, I know there are beef lovers out there who prefer to impress their family and guests with a prime rib roast. This roast, technically known as “standing rib roast” or commonly referred to as “prime rib,” has the same tenderness as ribeye steaks. This prime rib roast recipe is flavorful, super easy to make (only 2 ingredients!), and a great centerpiece for your holiday table.

A standing rib roast isn’t for holidays only, of course. We’ve served it to guests on special occasions or just because it’s easy and impressive. Plus, think of all of the leftovers!

Prime Rib Roast Recipe

I got this prime rib roast recipe from my sister-in-law Carrie, who is an avid home cook. She found this particular cooking method online. I performed a quick online search and found several websites that use this cooking method in their recipes. I believe that Chef John of Allrecipes.com might be the originator, but I’m not sure. If it’s someone else, let me know and I’ll give you credit 🙂

Standing Rib Roast

I like to serve my prime rib roast with horseradish or a horseradish sauce.

Ingredients

Prime rib roast (cooking time depends on how many pounds it weighs, so figure out how many pounds you want per person and follow the directions below)
Steak seasoning or rub (I use store-bought ones that contain coarse salt, black pepper, garlic, paprika, and other spices)
Horseradish or a horseradish sauce for serving (optional)

Directions

  1. Bring the prime rib to room temperature. This is important!
  2. Preheat the oven to 500° F.
  3. Generously cover all sides of the prime rib roast with seasoning. Place the roast on a broiler pan.
  4. Multiply the exact number of pounds and ounces that the roast weighs by 5 to calculate how many minutes to cook. For example, a roast that weighs 5 lb. and 2 oz. would cook for 26 minutes (5.2 x 5 = 26). Bake at 500 degrees for the figured out time.
  5. Turn the oven off and leave the prime rib roast in the oven for 2 hours without opening the door. This is important!
  6. Remove from the oven, let it rest, slice, and enjoy!

TIP:
You might need an electric knife to cut your prime rib roast.

Looking for more beef recipes? Check out my Russian-Style Beef Cutlets with Liver recipe. These Russian-style beef cutlets are tender, moist, and delicious!

My husband and I love chicken wings, but most restaurants fry their wings in industrial “vegetable” oils, which are highly unstable and inflammatory, so we finally perfected our own, homemade, crispy chicken wings recipe.

Lulu’s BBQ, where we live in Louisville, Colorado, smokes their chicken wings, and although they’re delicious, they are marinated in a BBQ sauce and must be full of sugar. I still prefer Lulu’s smoked wings to fried wings, so it’s a treat when I find myself wanting someone else to cook for me.

Chicken wings are great to eat while watching a football game. Joel loves football, so we were at a game our community was hosting, but they were serving breaded chicken wings (apparently, the grocery story ran out of the un-breaded ones). What?! I was so disappointed because I was craving wings, but I didn’t want the fried, the breaded, nor the sugary ones.

I bought a bag of frozen wings, saw how easy it was to make them, and voila — our crispy chicken wings recipe was born. Then Joel perfected it when he came up with a well-seasoned butter sauce to toss the wings in. It helps that he worked at a Wings ‘N Things restaurant in high school. 🙂 Now we often make these at home.

When you are busy business owners and healthy foodies, you come up with quick and easy recipes that are healthy, delicious, and satisfying, and then you share them with the world!

Plus, with the Super Bowl 2018 coming up this weekend, for all of you football fans out there, and the rest of us who love to watch Super Bowl commercials while eating healthy football party food, this recipe is a must!

The beauty of this homemade crispy chicken wings recipe is that you don’t have to thaw the chicken wings, which makes this a breeze. They might taste better thawed, but I’ve been too busy lately to try 😉

Ingredients

2 lbs. bag of frozen chicken wings
3 tablespoons butter, melted (I use grass-fed butter)
1 tablespoon Italian seasoning
2 teaspoons garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon white pepper
Salt to taste (I use Himalayan pink salt)

Directions

  1. Turn on the oven broiler.
  2. Arrange frozen chicken wings on a broiler pan. Ensure there’s plenty of space between wings, so they get really crispy.
  3. Once the broiler is heated, place the broiler pan with chicken wings about 6 inches from the heat source.
  4. Broil for 25-30 minutes, turning chicken wings over every 5 minutes, until they are as crispy as you like them. We like them really crispy!
  5. Meanwhile, mix melted butter, Italian seasoning, garlic powder, white pepper, and salt in a large bowl.
  6. Toss cooked chicken wings in the butter sauce. Serve while warm.

TIP:
We’ve also tried adding powdered mustard in addition to the above seasonings. Or, if you like them spicy, use a dash of cayenne pepper instead of Italian seasoning.

Enjoy!

Love chicken as much as we do? Check out our Crispiest Baked Chicken recipe.

I love chicken! I like it roasted, fried, baked, steamed, simmered in a homemade soup — you name it. Because I grew up in Russia, I always preferred the juicy dark meat (chicken legs and chicken thighs). I also love crispy chicken skin.

The key to achieving a super crispy chicken without frying it is the cooking fat that you use. I think that the pork fat is the best cooking fat for baking your chicken.

This crispiest baked chicken recipe is so good that you’ll never miss the deep-fried stuff. It’s super easy to make, too.

Crispy Baked Chicken Legs Recipe

Ingredients

8 whole chicken legs
1/4 cup pork fat (I like EPIC pastured pork fat)
1 tablespoon garlic powder, or to taste
Salt and freshly-ground pepper to taste

Directions

  1. Pe-heat oven to 415° F.
  2. Generously slather chicken legs with pork fat.
  3. Sprinkle chicken legs with salt, pepper, and garlic powder.
  4. Arrange on a broiler pan to allow for some of the fat to drip when cooking. Ensure there’s plenty of space between chicken legs, so they get really crispy.
  5. Bake for 40-45 minutes or until the skin is really crispy.

TIP:
Fry some garlic in grass-fed butter and pour over the chicken legs once they were done baking, as featured in my photo above.

Enjoy!