Holiday eating from The Gluten-free Chicano

Michael Sedano

Condiment Par Excellence: World's Best Cranberry Sauce, Naturally Gluten-Free

The day before preparing a roasted bird, or a simple pork loin that you want to make into an elegant banquet, or frying up a quotidian passel of pork chops à la Mammy Yokum, or a savory dish of stir-fried vegetables, make an essential condiment that is so delicious you serve it as a side-dish: fresh cranberry sauce.

Canned cranberry sauce is a time-honored feature, jellied or whole berry. That's a pale imitation of the real thing, but it's satisfactory. Really, it is; only satisfactory. 

Once you and your guests dig forks into this fresh cranberry and citrus dish, you'll abandon thoughts of picking a can when you're provisioning that meal. Pick up fresh berries and make your own. This recipe makes enough delicious cranberry sauce for numerous meals and snacks.

My granddaughter, who's graduating high school this year, has been preparing this with me for most of her life. Early in our kitchen experience, the 8- or 9-years old girl wrote down the recipe so she would never forget how to do this. 

This is how we do it:

A zester should be on your "all I want for Christmas" gift list, if you don't already own a zester. A zester's a wood rasp with a Ph.D. Keep the plastic sheath around it when you're not using it. Reaching into a drawer with a hidden naked zester will zest the skin right off your knuckles!

Rub the washed outside of your citrus with the tool, filling the zester with just the cascara's goodness.

Use your cocido/menudo pot. Pour three bags of fresh cranberries into the pot and set the fire on low-medium. Add the zests as you do each fruit. The berries begin to pop with the heat. Don't add a lot of sugar; you can always make it sweeter but you can't unsweet the too-sweet concoction. A cup is a good start.

Work diligently to get the fruit cut up and into the pot. The juice from the fruit adds essential liquid. Cut the fruit into spoon-size chunks and don't worry about membranes, but do remove seeds.

There's no rule for how many fruit to use, nor the varieties. You can use one toronja, one orange, one limon, or two of this and one of that. Every year's cranberry sauce can have its own character.

With the zest, sugar, fruit in the pot, let the popping fruit signal it's time to get the potato masher and push the fruit into the hot bottom where the low boil works magic.

Texture is up to you. With a lot of smashing you get a more jellied product. 

We enjoy whole berries mixed up with the jellied texture.

Get a gentle boil in the pot and cook on low heat fifteen minutes. More time, if you want a more jellied finish. Let the cranberry sauce cool and put into two containers; one for the meal, another for later. 

You'll enjoy this condiment slathered on a turkey sandwich, as a spread on gluten-free breakfast breads, or puffed rice cakes. Home-made cranberry sauces is naturally gluten-free, so bon apétit and buen provecho.

The Best Part of the Holiday Banquet: Turkey Soup the Day After 

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If your turkey gets roasted without bread stuffing inside the cavity, likely it's a gluten-free carcass you have after the meal. That platter of bones that once held meat, and still has lot of slivers and hunks of flesh, makes a perfect beginning to the post-holiday's economical and absolutely delicious soup, a wondrous gift of the season.

Órale, here's an idea for you singletons who get invited to the holiday feast then have sobras loaded up when you leave. 

Ask for the turkey carcass. Take home the bones and make the soup. 

Celery, carrots, papas, onion, garlic, a tomato if you will. Get them all chopped up into more or less equal sized bits. 

Get a lot of water into that menudo pot, put the carcass into the water that start it boiling. Almost instantly the aroma of rich turkey broth-in-the-making starts filling the air.

Cook at as hard a boil as pleases you and when the meat begins falling off the bones, use a fork or tongs to remove what meat you can. Then pull all the bones and the cola out of the broth.

Given a pot of broth with minimal bones and fragments--nor skin if gente don't appreciate the most flavorsome tidbits of a carcass--add the chopped vegetables, a half a lemon or both halves, and cook until the carrots and papas are fork tender. Maybe that's twenty minutes, and voilà. Hay 'stas. Caldo de turkey.

An Asian flat rice noodle--gluten-free--added for five minutes or so converts this simple soup into a really elegant noodle caldo that will have friends asking for seconds. You can dilute the broth once, or twice, to make the pot of soup go a long way.

Buen gluten-free provecho.

Poem for Blanca on the 30th Anniversary of Her Heavenly Birthday

 Melinda Palacio

My mom was disappointed when she saw that all of her photographs from Hawaii were in black and white. Here she imaged reliving lush waterfalls and the fun trip the three of us took, my mom, grandmother, and myself in 1989. I have one of those photos of her being chummy with a fire dancer. How I miss our time together, especially around the holidays. She would have been 73 yesterday, December 5. When the grieving and nostalgia hit, I feel a little sideways, kind of like this photo. However, if one of my fellow bloggers can turn the photo around, please advise. Thank you. ( rotated but it acquired a watermark)

1. Ode to the Plumeria in Her Hair

   Melinda Palacio

O sweet scent of a plumeria

affixed to the left side of her hair.

A single mom, she welcomes a local catch.

Unruly locks secure the fragile flower 

as she walks along Waikiki beach.

A Chicana in Honolulu, she becomes 

a wahine for a day, swims in Hanauma Bay, 

tries poi and banana bread offered to her 

by a woman waiting for a bus. I decline.

She never refuses an elder. 

In her short shorts, lathered in Banana Boat

tanning oil, mom teaches me how

to sway my hips hula style.

Sit next to her and the plumeria’s perfume

lands sweeter than any ripened fruit.

The flower’s center is infant seashell color,

coral born out of an explosive ocean swell.

A hint of yellow surrounding its center

and the iris of the petal is a fortune teller.

At the end of the day, white petals brown.

Tomorrow, our last day in paradise,

she will find a fresh bloom. Every day 

her hair exudes the aroma of summer.

O, how I miss those warm summer nights 

when she was still alive. A grown plumeria

cutting from a friend’s tree sways

in my backyard, a reminder of mom,

our summers together and

her unwavering love for me. 

The Rest of Us Are Already Here

                                                                                 

El Camaguey Market, on the roof, flying the colors of all Latin America

                                                                                               

     I remember some years back, could be five, maybe even ten, seeing a cartoon someone posted on social media. It was a drawing of a large U.S. Navy vessel stopped alongside a rowboat filled with half a dozen Mexicans off the California coast. One of the American sailors called down. “Why are you out here?”

     A Mexican called back, “We’re coming to the U.S. to start a revolution.”

     The American sailors, watching, started laughing. One called down, “Just you?”

     The Mexican answered, “No. The rest of us are already here.”

     I had a good laugh. I mean, there are many ways to interpret the piece, right, depending on where you might live in the U.S.? Those in the East might see it differently from those in the Midwest, the deep South, the Dakotas, the Pacific Northwest or the Southwest. Coming from Los Angeles, home to the largest Mexican population outside of Mexico, I figured the idea of a “revolution” meant a cultural transformation, not an armed insurrection.

     If Mexicans, African Americans, Asians, Arabs, or any other ethnic group had charged towards the capital in Washington D.C., on January 6^th, to start a revolution, they would have been mowed down before they reached the first steps of the building.

     Los Angeles has been my family’s home since 1917, five generations on both maternal and paternal sides, raised in roughly the same general area, Santa Monica, Culver City, Venice, and West Los Angeles. I always remembered a blend of cultures, mostly Mexican, Anglos, Japanese, and some African American, with a smattering of others throughout the years. My grandparents’ generation wasn’t the first generation of Mexicans here.

     Historically, exploration and migration from Mexico into what we know todays as the U.S. has been continuous since Cabeza de Vaca’s adventures in 1526, surviving among Indians, from Florida into Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, or what we know as the Southwest. In subsequent years, cataclysmic events, on both sides of the border, caused this migration to soar, of course, 1600 to 1700, when Spanish Mexican explorers settled New Mexico and Texas. In California, during the founding of settlements and missions from San Diego to San Francisco. 

     In later years, two major cataclysmic events brought Mexicans north, one the Mexican revolution (1910-1925), and the second, the Cristero War (1926-1929). Mexicans settled in cities and towns from Michigan to Kansas City and across the Southwest, working in mines, agriculture, manufacturing, and the railroads. Captains of industry welcomed the cheap labor with open arms. The U.S. and Mexico cooperated in bracero programs during the two world wars, which opened the doors to thousands more workers from Mexico, some who returned to Mexico, and many who didn’t.

     Then, in the 1980s, the turmoil created by U.S., CIA-supported civil wars in Central America, started the early migrant caravans from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua. We can't forget the poverty created by U.S. industries in Latin America, like petroleum, mining, and agriculture, ignoring environmental laws, that displaced thousands who also came north, after the destruction of their farms and homes. Most all those folks came, found work, settled in, and have been here for years. However, if we consider our indigenous blood, our roots go back thousands of years, deep, like the redwoods in the Sierras.

     The point is, that’s a lot of Mexicans/Latinos, just in California more than 15 million, 35 percent of the population, and some estimate close to half the population in twenty years, yet the Golden State continues to be one of the more prosperous in the nation, in nearly all categories of industry. In the U.S., Latinos are almost 20 percent of the U.S. population, the largest minority group in the country. So, in the cartoon, when the Mexican in the boat said, “The rest of us are already here,” he wasn’t lying, the irony right in our faces.

     As I walk my Mar Vista neighborhood on L.A.’s, quite expensive, westside, I see the cultural revolution in full swing. In the 1950s, there were, maybe, three or four Mexican restaurants in town. Today, everywhere I look, I see Mexican, Salvadoran and Oaxacan, restaurants, bakeries, and markets, and Latino sections at, even, Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods. Anglos are pulling corn and flour tortillas off the shelf with the same gusto they go after bread. Then, there's the more recent migration from Southeast Asia, the Middle and Far East, a Thai noodle shop at the corner, and on busy Venice Boulevard, Brazilian, Nepalese, Ethiopian, and Cuban food to die for.

     Around the corner from my house, on Venice boulevard, El Camaguey Cuban market, today, caters to all Latin American populations, including Haitians and Dominicans. I stand at the counter, and I see Argentinian “mate” cups on a shelf, alongside, bottles of various Mexican and Latin American concoctions of – who knows what? I think my grandfather used to call them “boticas,” translation, could be a pharmacy or a bottle of medicine.

     Then there’s the old school hair tonic, Tres Flores, which comes in wax or liquid, and I can’t forget, the Mexican favorite, displayed at the counter, Corn Nuts, in the original designed package, or what my Spanish-speaking uncle would call, “Maiz como puerco.”

     The butcher is at the back of the store. One day, I watched a young Anglo converse with him, asking about the best cut of meat for carne asada. The butcher, with a heavy accent, asked, “Marinated or plain.”

     The guy said, “Which tastes better?”

     The butcher recommended the marinated, thinly cut slices of meat. “Easy to cook, and tender. Just needs salsa on it.”

     So, that’s what the guy bought, the marinated cut. I also saw a lot of meat in the case I didn’t recognize, some of it looking back at me. I didn’t even ask. At the counter, two women talked, like they were meeting for the first time, one who said she was from Argentina, the other from Costa Rica, both with light skin, dark eyes, fairly tall, and slim, more Caucasian-looking than Latinas, another dashed stereotype.

     A few stores down from Camaguey, on the other side of a video game store and a hipster bar, $14.00 for a shot of tequila, is the “crunchy” Venice bakery, which serves a fusion of Mexican-Caribbean cuisine, bolillos, pan dulce, blueberry muffins, cakes, and the finest tres leche cakes. The place is always crowded, with young college kids, workers, families, and the obvious out-of-towners. Want a table? Put your name on the list. 

     The soft sounds of Crosby, Stills, and Nash, waft through air (can music waft? Quien sabe?). Tomorrow, it might be Los Tigres del Norte, Bad Bunny, or Kendrick Lamar.

     Close to the curb, la tamalera, has set up shop, under an umbrella, a large container on a table filled with this morning’s freshly cooked steaming tamales, pork, beef, chicken, and green chile with cheese. Her husband drives by a few hours each day to resupply her cache. She sits there eight-to-ten hours a day, almost every day, in her spot for well over two years, now, and a steady stream of customers. That’s not counting the paleta guy who rings his bell at the nearby park, or the taco stands that set up shop each day in front of Vons and CVS at the busy corners of National and Sepulveda. Fruit? The multi-colored umbrella and fruit carts are everywhere.

     It all reminds me of the song "Los Illegales," by Los Tucanes de Tijuana, where they sing, “The illegal is not a terrorist/ the illegal is a laborer/ Why do they want to kill us/ Be careful, we are many and over there come millions more.” Los Tucanes don’t want to scare people, just sing about what’s real, like when they belt out, “Terrorists have passports/ They don’t come in through land but by plane/ That’s why you shouldn’t bother with us/ But recognize we are only here to work.”

     So, I guess it’s true, U.S. culture has already changed, and continues to change, and, it appears, for the better, and not just in food and music but in all aspects of our daily lives, and it doesn’t just go one way. Culture affects everyone, like the kids of immigrants, who not only listen to Mexican rock and the hip, new ranchera sound, but tap into rap, classic rock, and Metal, preferring a cheeseburger over a taco.

     So, there's no doubt, the Mexican character in the cartoon, who calls up from the boat to the American sailors, “The rest of us are already there,” knows something maybe others are missing.

Daniel Cano is the author of the award-winning novel, "Death and the American Dream," the last days of Ricardo Flores Magon and the Magonistas in the U.S.

Three Pockets Full

Written by Cindy L Rodriguez 

Illustrated by Begoña Fernandez Corbalán

 

Publisher: ‎Cardinal Rule Press 

Language: ‎English

Hardcover: ‎32 pages

ISBN-10: ‎1735345156

ISBN-13: ‎978-1735345154

 

A story of love, family, and tradition

 

Beto won't wear a guayabera to the wedding. Nope! Nunca! Not going to happen! Beto tries his best to rid himself of the traditional Mexican wedding shirt his Mami gave him. He even gets help from his dog Lupe, but the shirt ends up back on his bed each time with notes from Mami, who becomes increasingly frustrated with Beto. Mami insists that Beto attend the wedding, and wear the shirt, because—after all—it's her wedding! Beto has to accept the fact that Mami is getting remarried and that she wants him to wear the shirt, which is part of his heritage.

 

This book comes with a free Reader’s Guide for children. The guide is available for free download from the publisher website. Lesson plans, activities, and discussion questions to allow parents, teachers, and caregivers to explore the topic further and deepen comprehension.

EN ESPAÑOL

 

 

Review

 

 

A sweet tale about cultural traditions and the loved ones we carry with us, this title is an excellent addition to picture book collections. — School Library Journal, Selenia Paz

 

"Rodriguez's debut picture book is a wonderful story about the challenges associated with change, family, and feelings...The bold, digital illustrations incorporate both humor and tenderness into this interesting look at a cultural tradition." --Booklist

 

 

Cindy L. Rodriguez is the author of the YA novel When Reason Breaks and has contributed to the anthology Life Inside My Mind: 31 Authors Share Their Personal Struggles. She has also written the text for three Jake Maddox books: Volleyball Ace, Drill Team Determination, and Gymnastics Payback. Before becoming a teacher in 2000, she was an award-winning reporter for The Hartford Courant and researcher for The Boston Globe’s Spotlight Team. She is a founder of Latinxs in Kid Lit, a blog that celebrates children’s literature by/for/about Latinxs. Cindy is currently a middle school reading specialist in Connecticut, where she lives with her family. This is her debut picture book. You can learn more at www.cindylrodriguez.com

_Somos Xicanas Anthology_, comentario por Xánath Caraza

 _Somos Xicanas Anthology_, comentario por Xánath Caraza

 

La Antología Somos Xicanas está por ver la luz este 14 de diciembre de 2024 en la Galería de arte de El Camino College en Torrance, California. La casa editorial Riot of Roses, dirigida por Brenda Vaca, está a cargo de la publicación. La editora de esta antología es Luz Schweig quien ha logrado completar dicha tarea titánica con la compilación del trabajo literario de ochenta poetas Xicanas.

A continuación, una serie de comentarios para Somos Xicanas.

Queridos lectores de La Bloga, no dejen de estar pendientes de los eventos venideros para Somos Xicanas. Por lo pronto espero y puedan asistir el 14 de diciembre a la primera presentación. Ojalá y nos acompañen. Para más información hagan click en esta página: https://www.somosxicanas.com/

 

New and Just in Time

Still looking for gifts?  How about a new book written by one of the founders of La Bloga?   He launches his work on December 7.  Details below.

The debut of R. Ch. Garcia's third book

Pinwheel Coffee

W. 37th Ave. & Navajo

Northside Denver, Colo.

Saturday, Dec. 7, 2024

12:00 – 3:00pm

A new young adult historical fantasy novella

based in the magic, myth and lore of the ancient Mexica,

1400 A.D. Mexico, 100 years before the Cortez invasion.

As reimagined & imagined by R. Ch. Garcia,

award-winning author of Death Song of the Dragón Chicxulub

Rchgarcia.com

_________________________________

Here are a few more suggestions for the reader in your house.

Thirtieth anniversary editions of the Luis Montez novels.  Order from Arte Público Press.  

Later.

_______________________

Manuel Ramos writes crime fiction.

Chicanonautica: Ghost of a Guajolote Day Past

by Ernest Hogan

Uh-oh. Chicanonautica has landed on Thanksgiving again. I should really do something, but what? Been doing this for a long time. Should I do Aztec rituals? Decolonizing the holiday? Food? 

Maybe that’s the answer. Rather than repeat myself, I could go back and provide a link to one of my old columns!

So, here's a golden oldie/blast from the past. Way back in 2011. Seems like another world, don’t it? It’s called “Guajolote, Thanksgiving, and Other Words.” Some rasquache, literary riffs, and Chicano weirdness.

Also, I looked it up, “border” in Nahuatl is tlalnamicoyan.

Enjoy the feast. Make your sacrifices.

 Ernest Hogan is thankful for being the Father of Chicano Science Fiction. His latest book is Guerrilla Mural of a Siren's Song: 15 Gonzo Science Fiction Stories.

The Hero Twins and the Magic of Song

The Hero Twins and the Magic of Song

(Tales of the Feathered Serpent #2)

Written by David Bowles

Illustrated by Charlene Bowles

Publisher: Lee & Low Books; Standard Edition 

Language: ‎English

Paperback: 80 pages

ISBN-10: ‎1947627694

ISBN-13: ‎978-1947627697

Reading age: ‎8 - 12 years

Grade level: ‎3 - 7

 

In the age when Maya demigods lived among us, two carefree brothers, One Hunahpu and Seven Hunahpu, are foolishly lured to Xibalba, the Land of the Dead, to play a game. Unfortunately, it was a one-way trip. Unable to return to the sea-ringed world above, One Hunahpu’s firstborn sons must be raised by their grandmother.

 

Yet all hope is not lost. Down in Xibalba, One Hunahpu meets the rebellious Lady Blood, and their love leads to another set of twin sons, destined to save their father and uncle and restore balance to the cosmos. But won’t be easy! Lady Blood is shunned in the world above, and the twins are taunted by their half-brothers’ cruel pranks. If they choose to use a little trickster magic, maybe… just maybe… they might succeed.

 

Adapted from author David Bowles’s retellings and translations of essential pre-Columbian texts like the Popol Vuh, the Tales of the Feathered Serpent series bring Indigenous Mesoamerican stories alive for young readers!

 

 

Los héroes gemelos y la magia de la canción

(Leyendas de la serpiente emplumada #2)

 

 

En esta novela gráfica que reinventa un cuento indígena mexicano, los gemelos semidioses usan la magia de la canción para rescatar a su padre y a su tío de la peligrosa tierra de los muertos. Una aventura suprema de grado medio!

 

In this graphic novel retelling of an Indigenous Mexican tale, demigod twins must use their magic of song to rescue their father and uncle from the perilous Land of the Dead. A supreme middle-grade adventure!

 

En la época en que los semidioses mayas vivían entre nosotros, dos hermanos despreocupados, Uno Hunahpu y Siete Hunahpu, son atraídos a Xibalbá, la Tierra de los Muertos, para jugar. Desafortunadamente, fue un viaje sin regreso. Incapaces de regresar al mundo rodeado de mar, los hijos primogénitos de Uno Hunahpu deben ser criados por su abuela.

 

Sin embargo, no toda esperanza está perdida. En Xibalbá, Uno Hunahpu conoce a la rebelde Lady Blood, y su amor conduce a otro par de hijos gemelos, destinados a salvar a su padre y a su tío y restaurar el equilibrio del cosmos. ¡Pero no será fácil! Lady Blood es rechazada en el mundo de arriba, y los gemelos se burlan de las crueles bromas de sus medio hermanos. Si eligen usar un poco de magia engañosa, tal vez… sólo tal vez… puedan tener éxito.

 

Adaptada de los recuentos y traducciones del autor David Bowles de textos precolombinos esenciales como el Popol Vuh, la serie Cuentos de la serpiente emplumada da vida a las historias indígenas mesoamericanas para los lectores jóvenes.

 

 

 

David Bowles is a Mexican American author from south Texas, where he teaches at the University of Texas Río Grande Valley. He has written several award-winning titles, most notably The Smoking Mirror and They Call Me Güero. His graphic novels include the Clockwork Curandera trilogy and the Tales of the Feathered Serpent series, based on stories from his critically acclaimed Feathered Serpent, Dark Heart of Sky. His work has also been published in multiple anthologies, plus venues such as The New York Times, School Library Journal, Strange Horizons, English Journal, Rattle, Translation Review, and the Journal of Children's Literature. In 2017, David was inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters. He is online at davidbowles.us and on Twitter at @DavidOBowles.

 

 

Charlene Bowles is a comic artist and illustrator based in Texas. She graduated from The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley in 2018. Rise of the Halfling King is her debut graphic novel and her work has also been featured on the covers of the award-winning Garza Twins books. She is currently developing many of her own comic projects.

The Gluten-free Chicano's Basic Caldo de Pollo

28 November 2004 • 28 November 2024

This Tursday marks the 20th anniversary of the universe's longest-running Chicana Chicano Latina Latino Literary Blog. Estas son las mañanitas, happy birthday to us, this Thursday.

Híjole, over 7 million devices have clicked on La Bloga since our day one post, when only the founding bloggers, Rudy Ch. Garcia, Manuel Ramos, and Michael Sedano, knew and clicked. Here's a 2012-vintage Latinopia video interview with Michael Sedano recalling the origins of this now-20 year old literary blog (link).

The Gluten-free Chicano Cooks
Caldo de Pollo / Chicken Soup With Rice 
Michael Sedano

 
In November's gusty gale I will flop my flippy tail 
And spout hot soup-I'll be a whale!
Spouting once, spouting twice
Spouting chicken soup with rice

 "chicken soup with rice " by Carole King and Maurice Sendak link: to text

 
No te preocupes no te preocupes
Cien años no dura el mal
Escúchame esta esta receta
Que aquí te vengo a cantar ah ah ah

"Caldo de Pollo," by Felipe Barrientos / Luis Manuel Lozano Pena

Performed by Grupo Mojado (YouTube link) 

 

This soup has bones. Diners pick out or spit out the bones, not a
pleasant experience. Please de-bone the soup prior to presenting.

The three- or maybe four-year old boy wandered unsupervised into the chicken yard. Las gallinas clucked and gently fled the boy's transgressions, but the giant white Leghorn gallo took major exception to the boy's intrusion and in a few moments the terrified boy was screaming at the beating wings that threatened to knock him to the ground. The boy's grandmother rushed to the noise, grabbed the rooster by the neck and swung the bird in the air. That afternoon, the small boy tasted his first caldo de pollo and learned that people are masters of their own fate and angry roosters taste great in a soup.

The Gluten-free Chicano remembers the first good soup he cooked. Caldo de Pollo, casi almost like his grandmother and mother made. Ever since that pot de caldo, his soup has inched ever closer to caldo like the women of his familia cooked. It all started with that initial venture into home made soup.

Chicken soup is a universal cure for almost any ailment. It doesn't always work but just having a big bowl of caldo de pollo reliably comforts gente in the gripa of a seasonal bug like a bad cold or flu. Like Menudo is known as a sure-fire way to treat la cruda, caldo de pollo is known to fix everything else.
 
Making caldo de pollo the right way takes a lot of effort and more than a modicum of skill. One of those "don't try this at home" things. Pero ni modo, el Gluten-free chicas patas has a wondrous way with fast and easy company cooking that comes out right.
 
Today's recipe made from the carcass of a roasted chicken and a handful of vegetables would make my antepasadas happy, it tastes so good with such minor labor.
 
The Gluten-free Chicano had friends over and he pulled the bones, más o menos, from the meat and the gathering made do-it-yourself tacos de pollo and enjoyed a wondrous plática. That grocery store roasted chicken is the key ingredient in the next day's caldo de pollo.

There's a lot of pollo chunks on a roasted bird so The Gluten-free Chicano saved the taco leftovers with the meaty bones and wings not made into tacos. All of this gets boiled down and becomes the pollo part of the caldo. Nota bene: you can boil down the carcass with onion and garlic then strain or pull out the bones to make a rich broth in which you boil the veggies.
 
Vegetable mélange varies according to availability and preference for pepper and chiloso. Bell peppers might be an acquired taste for some, plus the stores charge almost a dollar a pepper. Fresh or dried chile costs little but require light touches for some tables. Mejor, serve crushed chiles as a garnish on the side. If you own small serving ceramics all the más mejor.
 
Chop the vegetables to the same size pieces. Mince the garlic and just halve and slice the onion, it cooks down. A quarter inch on the other vegetables is just right.

Add veggies and spices and rice to the boiling bones or stock, cover and simmer at medium flame. If you don't de-bone, cook until the bones pull out of the water. Alternatively, after removing huesos, add less than a handful of rice and cook until the rice ends blossom out. 

Pulling the bones out of the water consumes the only hard labor of making the soup, and it's crucial to do. Tongs and a big spoon help to remove every bit of bone from the spine, the wings, the ribs. When eating, it's ok to spit out the bones you inevitably leave behind. Así es, but next time, do a better job.
 
There's always a next time because Caldo de Pollo from supermarket roasted chicken is a reliably good meal requiring only good knives, a big pot, an hour's wait. Every time you make it, change it. 

 
When you find "your" caldo recipe, a cook will begin developing a soup repertoire, expanding into caldo de res The Gluten-free Chicano knows as cocido, albondigas, caldo de camaron, menudo, hasta Lee's Green Soup. Then there are potato soup, lentil soup, guisados and beyond.
 
La Bloga-Tuesday and The Gluten-Free Chicano will share these soups in upcoming columns. Soup weather has arrived, people will say, pero sabes que? Soup weather is year-round! Nothing hits the spot for sensible, low-cost eating like a good caldo.
 
The Gluten-free Chicano controls celiac and diabetes by walking and eating right, featuring salads and a lot of soups. Adding a bit of culinary complexity, The Gluten-free Chicano's dietician recommends diabetics like him limit carbs to 50 per big meal. This particular Caldo de Pollo, per bowl, meets the dietician's consejos: less than 100g in the entire recipe, or 25g per bowl served to four diners.
 
The more liquid you make, the more bowls of caldo you can serve. Concomitantly, the more bowls, the fewer grams of carbs per bowl. 
 
Serve with tortilla de maíz, fresh lemon, dried chiles. Fancy, add chopped onion and cilantro. Frijoles on the side are perfection itself. Add an elegance factor serving tortilla de maíz quesadillas. (tortilla -13g ea, cheddar .4g per oz, 1 mozzarella / queso oaxaca)
 

Ingredients in A Recipe for Basic Gluten-free, low-carb Caldo de Pollo

Chicken bones from a grocery-store roasted pollo - .06g per lb

Potatoes - 15g per papa (white or red)

Carrots - 8g per cup, boiled

Celery - 4g per cup raw

Tomato - 4g each

Tomato sauce - 6g 8oz can

Onion - 10g large bulb

Garlic - 1g per clove

Cilantro - .7 per sprig

Comino (seed preferably, powdered good too) -  per tsp 1g / 2g seed

Salt - 0g

Black peppercorns (ground is just fine) - 1g per tsp

Rice - 45g cup cooked 

Water

Órale. You can count your own carbs in much of your food by doing a bit of work. The Gluten-free Chicano relies upon The Carbohydrate Counter website (link)for diet counting.