Chickens! (and bees)

I'm not gonna lie; this post may be graphic if you don't like to see raw chickens. There's a photo at the bottom of me plucking feathers from a chicken but otherwise nothing too crazy.

My personal belief is if you can't handle butchering an animal you have no business eating meat. Butchering gives you a whole level of respect and understanding for animals that is lost when you're standing at the meat counter at the grocery store. Butchering makes you really think about how many animals had to die to put 20 thighs in that big family package, and makes you realize just how pumped full of growth inducing hormones and food all those supermarket animals are.

Yesterday we butchered 4 roosters, 2 were from our farm and 2 were from my grandma. When you have multiple roosters in the same pen, they tend to fight each other and harass the chickens. Roosters aren't necessary for egg production, only for producing chick-filled eggs, so we decided to reduce the number of roosters. We still have one, a Buff Orpington. 

Curiosity did not kill this kitten!

Friday night, the roosters were pulled out separate from the flock and put in cages so they wouldn't eat anything. The less they eat, the less likely you are to get poop on yourself and the raw meat when you're butchering. 

My brother is responsible for the head-whacking, and I am responsible for holding the rooster in place during and after the head whacking. Surprisingly, chickens move A LOT after their head is gone and make some pretty strange noises as the wind is leaving their windpipes. I try to hold the headless body in place so blood doesn't go everywhere. 

 We hand-pluck the feathers after dipping the bird in hot water for a couple minutes. This helps the feathers to come out quickly. Then we remove the innards from the bird and break it down (cut the wings, legs, etc off the main body), and package each bird with my Foodsaver. Start to finish, it takes about 4 hours to process 4 birds.

You can see on my apron that a couple of the birds went a little crazy ...

Also yesterday, we added another super to the beehive because the one we added a couple weeks ago is completely full! We have one more super ready to add that needs to be painted, to protect it from the elements. I've been reading a lot about how much honey we need to leave for the bees over winter, and trying to figure out how we're going to harvest honey and honeycomb when it gets to be that time...

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Farm happenings

 Freddy is starting to get the hang of this whole "sit" command...Unless he is distracted by chickens or kittens and then you might as well pick him up and remove him from the situation.

 The chickens (and roosters) are getting huge!

Yesterday I harvested a couple cukes, 3 Cherokee Purple tomatoes, about a cup of blackberries. Also about  10 sweet 100 tomatoes that I gave to Dad for his lunches (not pictured).

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Open Door Policies

Sunday afternoon, Daniel and the Hubs helped put the chicken wire around the chicken yard. Dad bought 6' tall chicken wire. 

The chickens won't be out all day yet. We have a lot of farm cats and they like to sit outside the chickens' door and watch them. We may be installing more fence across the top of the chicken yard so the chickens can't fly out and the cats can't jump in. For now, they get to run around in the yard for a couple hours every evening.

Freddy weeding; he doesn't like morning glories

Freddy is about to stay outside all day. He doesn't know this yet. He'll be 11 weeks tomorrow and for some reason I think 12 weeks is the magic number. There's a little bit of fence fixing that needs to be done at Grandma's house so that he doesn't crawl out under the chain link.
I don't want him to be chained to a tree all day. Eventually, I'd like to get to the point where he can run free on the farm, without chasing tractors and trucks going by on the road, and without digging up the garden.

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Coucous with Chicken, Lemon and Olives

I told you this was on the list to make this week!
This is another recipe from The Joy of Cooking. Boy am I glad I joined the crazies the first weekend of Borders' closing. The 20% off deal on this book was nice...

If you haven't figured out by now, I think of recipes as guidelines. This drives the Hubs crazy. He wishes I would just follow a recipe word for word!

I didn't understand the point of browning the chicken in a couple tablespoons of oil, then removing the chicken and draining the oil and then returning the chicken to the pan. So I used less oil instead. And I don't have a dutch oven; I have a Calphalon stock pot similar to the link but mine is all aluminum with a glass lid.

Couscous with Chicken, Lemon and Olives
supposedly 4 servings, but those would be pretty large servings

In a large ziplock baggie, combine:
4 lbs chicken parts, skin removed if desired (I used 1.75 pounds of boneless skinless chicken tenderloins)
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 shallot, diced (this was not in the recipe, but I bought a bag of shallots last week, having convinced myself that there were shallots in this recipe!)
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground pepper
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp paprika
1/8 tsp saffron (I used turmeric.)
1 tsp salt (I didn't use that much because I knew the olives would be pretty salty)

Refrigerate for 30 minutes to an hour. (I didn't have time for that. I was hungry and tired, so I mixed it all in the stock pot and cooked on VERY low heat for a few minutes.)


Simmer the chicken until nearly cooked through. Add more olive oil if needed, to prevent sticking.

Add:
2 c water
1 large leek, thinly sliced
a few sprigs of parsley and cilantro (my cilantro isn't big enough yet to harvest so I only used parsley)

Reduce heat and simmer for 30-45 minutes (closer to 20 if using boneless chicken)

Add:

1 preserved lemon, sliced thickly (I used a fresh lemon)

2/3 c cured green olives, pitted and halved (I used about 20 Kalamata olives) 

In the meantime, prepare 2 1/2 c couscous per package directions. (You want to end up with 2 1/2 c of couscous, so it takes a little over 2/3 c dry couscous and about 1 1/4 c water)
When the couscous is finished, transfer to a serving dish (or to your huge Pampered Chef glass bowl). Top with the olives, chicken and lemon pieces. Leave the sauce in the pan and bring to a simmer. Add:
1/4 c lemon juice
2 Tbsp fresh parsley
2 Tbsp fresh cilantro
(Or a squirt of lemon juice from the bottle, and about 1/2 c of fresh parsley)
After it has reduced a little, pour over the couscous/chicken mixture.

Delicious. I need to take less blurry pictures with my camera phone!

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Crockpot Chicken Stuffing

A couple years ago for Christmas, Aunt Lisa gave us a slow cooker book called "Fix it and Forget it Big Cookbook" because I mentioned to her that we use the crockpot a lot. It's easier for us to make dinners like this since the Hubs and I work different shifts. I work 8-5 and he works 3:30 to midnight, and sometimes later.

Chicken, Corn and Stuffing

4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
6 oz box chicken stuffing (like Stove top)
16 oz package frozen corn
1/2 stick butter, melted
2 c water

Place chicken in bottom of bowl. Mix together remaining ingredients and pour over chicken.
Cook, covered, for 2 1/2 hours on high.

Notes:
1. Spray the cooker with non-stick spray before putting the chicken in, or the stuffing will stick to the sides.
2. Check the chicken for done-ness after 2 1/2 hours. I had to cook it a little longer because the inside was still pink. Next time, I will probably cut the chicken breast in half so they cook faster, or use chicken tenderloins instead.

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Moroccan Chicken with Orzo, and Chardonnay

I found this recipe online a month or so ago and have been meaning to try it but was out of chicken breast until recently. I made my way to the website because it was featured in a CNN.com article: http://cheaphealthygood.blogspot.com/2009/01/floppy-hats-and-decent-food-jenny.html
It's from a Jenny Craig cookbook, but it sure doesn't taste like diet food!

Moroccan Chicken with Orzo
1 cup orzo, uncooked
2 teaspoons paprika
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon turmeric or 1/2 teaspoon saffron threads
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 large clove garlic, minced
14-16 ounces chicken breast, cut into bite-sized pieces (1" or smaller)
2 teaspoons olive oil
1-1/4 cup chopped onion
1 cup low-sodium chicken broth
1/4 cup golden raisins
1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped

1) Cook orzo in salted water until al dente.  Drain and set aside.

2) While orzo is cooking, get out a medium bowl. Add paprika, cumin, salt, turmeric, cinnamon and garlic, and stir to combine. Add chicken and stir until entirely coated with mix. 

3) In a large nonstick skillet, heat oil over medium-high heat. Add onion. Saute about 4 minutes, until it's a little soft and translucent, stirring occasionally. Add chicken. Brown chicken, stirring occasionally, 6 to 8 more minutes. Pour in broth and raisins. Drop heat back to medium and let it cook for 5 minutes.

4) Kill heat. Remove skillet from burner. Pour cooked orzo into skillet. Stir until thoroughly combined. Top with fresh cilantro and serve.

How I changed it:
I didn't have chicken broth; I had chicken bouillon. Instead of draining the orzo, I stirred in the bouillon powder into the pasta water.
I didn't add raisins. The Hubs doesn't like raisins and I want to get his opinion on the recipe. If he eats it, maybe we'll eat it more often when he's not on the Atkins diet.
I also didn't add cilantro. If I'd had some, I would have used it but I am currently out!
Saffron threads are expensive. Even if I had a full time job I wouldn't buy them. I used turmeric. 

Definitely delicious. It's not spicy hot, but spicy warm like a sweet curry. I went back for seconds. The recipe is supposed to make 5 servings. But it's the only thing I ate for dinner, so maybe there are only three servings if you don't have a side of vegetables.

The wine I'm trying tonight is Snapping Turtle Chardonnay. It is about a $10 bottle of wine. Even chilled, there isn't a bite. I'd buy it again. I didn't eat it with the chicken and orzo. This is my after-dinner-need-a-drink-so-i-can-sleep drink. I'm exhausted physically after driving, well riding while Jenny drove, to a jobsite 1-1/2 hours away. We had work to do there and drove there three days this week. I'm thinking part time work is for the birds!

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