Supper with the Girls

Meet the Girls!
I can't really tell who is who from this angle but
the kids would probably know. I stopped naming them
in case we eat them. I'm more likely to name them as I
butcher them. Fryer, roaster, casserole, broth...
For the time being, they are all named Layer until they
prove otherwise!

If you can't stand the heat....

Yes, I really did take a picture of my thermostat! It's too hot to much else. The kids stand in the other room and blow me hugs because we don't want any heat sources that close to our bodies! My bubba doesn't want me to hug OR kiss him because he said I feel like hot and sticky stuff. Well, I nevah!

I am trying to keep the electric bill at least lower than the national deficit. We keep it off during the day and use it at night so we can sleep better. I just couldn't do it today. I set it to 80 and I still heard it come on several times and the coolest it got in the house was 83.


I know this is South Texas and all but it just seems hotter than usual. Every spring and fall I sing songs about the joy of living in Texas and write poetry about the perfectly beautiful days. Every summer I ask WHY!?!? This summer still seems worse than past summers. Maybe it is because we have only had 3" of rain so far this year. Last year we had so much rain that my chickens thought they were ducks and started quacking! They spent so much time in puddles I feared their feet would become webbed!

This summer has been dry. Everyone keeps saying it isn't as humid this year, and that sounds like a good thing but I think it isn't. Humid means moisture, moisture comes from rain, rain makes things green. Our grass isn't green, it is a nice straw color. I have always said that I wanted to get rid of the grass to make way for a bigger garden but in this heat and drought my garden is barely hanging on.

This really used to be grass. Very green tall grass that my happy hens loved to feast on. Now they dig holes and roll in the dirt. They always make the best of an awful situation! If life gives you dirt, take a dirt bath!

In the spirit of full disclosure (I would hate to be called dramatic or an exaggerator) I will admit that there still are a few small patches of green in my yard. Little oases of life that I feel guilty mowing when most everything else is dying.

This isn't just an excuse to show off my 'mid century' vintage thermostat! I wanted a good reason to show once again how clever I am. I'm not bragging, my mom tells me I am clever all the time. If I'm going to sweat my hiney off trying to save money by not using the AC during the day then why in the world would I add more heat to the house by using the stove or oven? I usually cook 3 times a day that can make the house unbearable. So here is where the clever comes in...

First I tried baking my bread in my big nesco roaster out on the back porch. The pans fit in just right. I set them on metal racks so the bottoms wouldn't burn. Everything came out great.

With the bread made we were able to have sandwiches for lunch instead of having to cook something.

Lunch out of the way, only one meal left. I put the last of our garden potatoes in the nesco and set it baking at 400. I cut up some sausage, poured BBQ sauce over it and topped with our homegrown bell peppers (store bought onions) and set them beside the potatoes. I cooked it all until the spuds were done and the BBQ sauce was sizzling. Came out wonderful. I even made dessert in it. Cinnamon rolls made with the extra bread dough from the bread I made earlier. The desserts rarely survive long enough for me to photograph so I am guessing the gang liked it.

If You Can't Stand the Heat
Get out of the Kitchen!
and onto the back porch

Update: many asked how I do my bread, what kind of pans I use, how long it takes, etc. so here are answers to some of those questions:

I use Norpro 8 Inch Nonstick Bread Pan bread pans that measure 8"x4"x3" deep. They can also be purchased at Urban Homemaker.

I use agave as my sweetener so when I bake my bread I use a lower temperature than you would if you used regular sugar. I bake my bread between 325 and 350 for 45 min. If using regular sugar the recipe calls for cooking it at 375. Some days it seems to cook quicker than others. It probably has to do with how much dough I put in each pan. My recipe actually fills 5 of the norpro pans but only 4 fit in the roaster. I put 4 loaves in for regular bread and the fifth dough ball gets turned into cinnamon bread which I also cook in the roaster after the first batch of bread is done.

I use a metal cooling rack on the bottom of my roaster to set my baking pans on. That keeps them from burning. I take the lid off to check if it is done otherwise I leave the lid on.

I have made cobbler, cinnamon rolls, casseroles, bacon and even toast in my roaster. I try and do all my cooking outside because I don't like to heat the house.

Tomato what??? Part 2

After the enchilada project I still had 4 cups left of tomato paste. I was tired and so done smelling tomato products and washing utensils with orange stains but still, I just couldn't bring myself to waste it and I knew that if I didn't do something that night it just wouldn't get done. I have a chronic pain condition so these kitchen extravaganzas of mine usually take me a few days to recover from so it was a Now or Never sorta thing!

I decided to try BBQ sauce. I was not using a recipe because none of the recipes I found called for 4 cups of tomato paste. I just made it up as I went and tasted it along the way. I gathered the ingredients that I thought would go well in BBQ sauce. I used Farmer Boy's homegrown jalapenos, onion, garlic, dehydrated bell pepper, dehydrated celery leaf, sugar, ginger, a pinch of cinnamon, apple cider vinegar and dry mustard.

My sous chef dumped the ingredients into my handy dandy Bosch Blender and gave it a whirl. **Notice the pan of encharitos under his arm made with my fab enchilada sauce**

We poured into a big stock pot and mixed it with the tomato paste and a blender full of water. It was very thick and tomatoey so I added more water and simmered. Still very NOT BBQ tasting. I added some liquid smoke and more water. Then I found a can of peach nectar in the cabinet and added that. It was starting to taste better. It isn't your KC Masterpiece or Kraft BBQ sauce, I would say it is more in line with the real stuff you get with authentic Texas BBQ.

After adding and simmering and adding and simmering I decided I just had to get some sleep. I dumped the whole batch in the crock pot and put it on low. It was Saturday night and we had church in the morning so I would let it slow cook until after church.


It mellowed and became more flavorful after slow cooking. I canned it in 12oz jars. Because of the high acid and vinegar used I just did a boiling water bath (BWB). We used it on the broilers I raised this spring. It was mighty good. Would it be too cliche to say it was Finger Lickin' Good?

Canned Chicken

Canned chicken is a pantry staple in my kitchen. I can use it to make quick soup, salads, casseroles, stir-fry and tacos or spaghetti. I have found store bought canned chicken to be very dry and flavorless. By canning my own I can control the ingredients, seasonings and my stuff doesn't get recalled! I can the chickens I butcher and also chicken I buy at a good price from the market.

My canned chicken has chicken and my homemade broth. My broth is cooked overnight with chicken bones, carrots, celery, garlic, onion, parsley and any other veggie or herbs that I have on hand at the time. I strain it through a cheese cloth to get a nice clear broth.

The store bought stuff looks something like this: Cooked Chicken Meat, Mechanically Separated Chicken Meat, Cooked Chicken Skins, Chicken Stock, Water, Contains Less than 2% of: Salt, Modified Food Starch, Sodium Phosphates, Natural Flavoring.

The store bought stuff doesn't look THAT bad but I would like to know what is in natural flavoring and what does mechanically separated mean? Why food starch and are sodium phosphates good for me?

Mutant Chickens

Last spring I decided to try my hand at raising chickens for meat. I did a lot of reading and talked to other chicken owners about it. After a year of wondering if I could do it I finally took the plunge. Not a little plunge either! I ordered 20 day old Cornish X Broilers. They were suppose to be ready for the frying pan in just 6 short weeks! I also ordered 15 assorted bantam chicks and then the hatchery threw in an extra free chick to show their appreciation for my order. The day arrived and we received a call from the post office that they had a package for us. I was surprised at how many little chicks they were able to fit into a shoebox sized package! Boy where they noisy. The first thing we noticed was how much bigger the broilers were compared to the bantams. The next thing we noticed was that they really like to eat. Nothing else seems to matter to them. Just eating. Right away they were bigger, smellier, noisier. As they got bigger they started to have bald bellies which I guess is part of the convenience, easier to pluck. So we have these mutant, stinky, partially bald chicks that are suppose to be dinner. For two weeks we had these little monsters in our garage until we felt they were able to survive outdoors with shelter and a heat lamp. Silly me, I felt bad having them cooped up so I let them out twice a day to scratch around and get fresh grass. I also felt bad keeping them in relative darkness most the day so I gave them light! Well, after six weeks I did not have big fat broilers ready for the BBQ, I had very lean broilers that needed to gain weight! When it was all said and done these mutants weren't ready for butchering until they were about 16 weeks. I swore I would never do mutant chickens again. I would choose an heirloom breed that was a good meat bird. It would take about the same amount of time as my lucky broilers took. Now that I am down to the last few frozen birds I am rethinking the whole broiler thing. Maybe if I did it right this time, no free ranging, no bright lights, just 6 weeks of sitting around eating and getting fat. Or maybe not, the fam has let me know that I do not have their vote on this issue!

eggs

We are in full swing egg production! I would say we are getting about a dozen eggs a day. The little green eggs are from our bantams and they are so cute. They make a bite sized fried egg and are super cute for making pickled eggs.

Silkie Roosters

We added 15 bantams to our backyard flock this spring. Five of them were black silkies. These are the coolest looking chickens. They look like a Jim Henson/George Lucas collaboration. We knew that when we ordered our bantams that we would end up with some roosters. Bantams don't come sexed so it is the luck of the draw. The plan was to butcher the roosters. Well out of 15 bantams only 3 seemed to be roosters. I thought we would have more than that! I butchered those 3 unlucky birds over a month ago. All seemed well in chickenville. Then the other morning we heard a strange noise. A cock-a-doodle-siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiighhhhh. Just a little noise. Cute really. We thought surely that wouldn't bother the neighbors. It wasn't very loud. We weren't even sure who was crowing and if they were really crowing. Maybe they were just pretending to be a rooster. Each day it got a bit louder and as the saying goes, practice makes perfect! My neighbors are way cool about our city flock and enjoy watching them and love the eggs but they aren't too keen on roosters. I knew this guy's days were numbered. The problem was I didn't know which bantam was the guilty one. Out of the 10 remaining bantams I was pretty sure it was one of the silkies. They are strange birds and I wasn't sure how to tell the difference between a rooster and a hen (or cockerel and pullet). Two seemed to have a slightly different comb and wattle. But wait, we only heard one crowing so maybe the strange comb wasn't the sign of a rooster. As I sat on the porch listening to my girls cackle over whose turn it was in the nest box I heard a cock-a-doodle-doooooooooooooooooooooo but mid doodle it seemed to start again. An echo? I don't think so, this is Texas, not a box canyon. Sure enough two late blooming roosters were trying to out doodle each other. The weird comb IS the sign of a rooster. I have butchered 18 chickens over the last 3 months. I don't have a problem with the butchering, I am farm girl, hear me squeal! I just wasn't looking forward to butchering the silkies. They are so fluffy and feathery. I wasn't sure what to do with all that fluff!

Might as well get to it. I wanted to take care of the crowing before it really annoyed our neighbors. I got into chicken butchering attire, pink rubber gloves that match my pink crocks. I gathered my knives and headed for the coop. I decided to use my lazy farm girl butchering technique. Bantams are smaller than regular chickens so it is a bit harder to dress them. The wings and back don't have a lot of meat and since silkies have fuzz all the way down to their extra fifth toe I knew I wasn't going to use the feet for broth. I decided I would skin them and just take the thigh, drumstick and breast. No need to gut or pluck. The silkies are known for their black skin (these are black silkies) and I considered plucking them just for the novelty of it but as the mosquitoes started fixing me in their sites, plucking seemed like more trouble than it was worth. Interesting FYI, their meat is darker too. The tendons, bone and meat are all dark gray. It is really strange. I wonder if it will taste like dark meat?

The other roosters I butchered were a bit stringy and tough. I decided to try brining these two to see if that would helped tenderize them. I used a brine mix that I found at Old World Market. It has rosemary, onion, garlic, cranberries and peppercorns. It is stronger flavored than what I usually make but I thought that if the meat is dark it might also have a stronger flavor and so the turkey brine might mellow it a bit. I mixed the brine with boiling water until the salt dissolved. Then I cooled it down and poured it over the chicken pieces. I put that in the frig and tomorrow we will throw them on the grill. Can't wait!