Pescatarian no more.

I voluntarily ate half a piece of this for dinner last night:
chicken - before

(after it was cooked)

I’ve been mulling it over for a while now: perhaps if I got more protein I’d see improvements athletically and in my daily energy levels. I am loath to add to the million eggs I eat per week, and for whatever reason I don’t cook fish very often. Experimenting with chicken seemed logical, if I could get past my meat-related issues.

Saturday morning at the City Market we stopped at the Tall Cotton Farm table, our attention caught by their heritage Thanksgiving turkey advertising (is it really October already??), and left with some pastured chicken breasts for the Grand Chicken Experiment.

chicken - after

It had been about ten years since I ate chicken. Since becoming a pescatarian, my thoughts on the ethics of eating meat have evolved to the point where I have no theoretical problems with the consumption of happy (humanely treated, pasture raised, drug free), local (the farmer is accountable to the customer, and the environmental impact is small) meat. But chicken was (oddly?) the first to go when I initially quit meat, and my memories of its taste and texture have not mellowed over time, so I was nervous.

To go with the chicken, I made a hearty rainy day soup based on a Curried Butternut and Red Lentil Soup recipe, adding a ripped up bunch of Red Russian Kale leaves (locally grown, purchased at Feast) and leaving the skin on the butternut.

butternut lentil soup

Coincidentally, I had just read about Red Russian Kale in this review of the Crazy for Kale cookbook when I was browsing the produce at Feast, so I HAD to add it to my soup, and it was a great addition. Even Mr HP, who usually doesn’t appreciate it when I go off-recipe, raved about the soup.

How was the chicken, you ask? It was… ok. The taste was nice (and not how I remembered it at all!), but the chewier-than-fish consistency will take some re-getting used to. I’ll keep at it. Energy and strength gains TBD.

3 thoughts on “Pescatarian no more.

  1. Hope you see the desired increase in strength and energy.

    Let me know if locally sourced venison is of interest. In a couple weeks I may be able to help there.

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