nerfherder
Active Member
Possible this should go under the Healthy Things forum, but what the heck - time for a happy post celebrating nothing in particular.
First - I love to spatchcock chicken. I've been a butcher/meat cutter, did who knows how many chickens in how many ways when I worked at the co-op. So boning a chicken is so much a no-brainer I can have fun with it. The kiddos think it's great when I make "flat chicken" - bone out everything but the wings and drumsticks, arrange the floppy carcasses on a rack over the deep pan, season with paprika, garlic and onion powder, salt & pepper, bake at 425 for an hour or something until the skin is crispy and meat is cooked through.
Well, in order of preference my chickens of choice are: backyard, Empire, Petaluma, Foster Farms. Not really trusting anything else. I'm like the only Jew (which is to say, brought up as such but have other ideas about religion these days) within a 30 mile radius, it seems like, so not driving 60 miles just to buy an Empire chicken. Petaluma is mostly over the border in CA, and our Wally's was out of Foster Farms.
So yesterday with no other options, Blacksmith came home with T*son brand. I trust T*son like I trust my daughter to not rifle my drawers, and if THEY can't be comfortable selling a whole chicken that doesn't have "up to 12% chicken broth added, chicken broth contains chicken, salt and 'flavorings'" then why should I trust their quality?
I drained off the nasty 12%, rinsed the heck outa the carcasses, wiped them dry, and performed my magic. They did ooze a lot of broth that went into the fridge, it's a treat for the dogs. The bones I boned out also go to the dogs - we feed our pups a raw diet and they aren't as brand-picky as I am. (We've been feeding them like that for years, they have brilliant white teeth, no dog breath, and heck - Cowboy the 2.5 lb deer-leg chihuahua is built like a tiny pocket pit-bull.)
The kids loved it of course. The 2 year old gets the drummettes, the 6 and 9 year old get the drumsticks and other wing parts, and we adults get everything else.
So today for lunch, the kids had sliced chicken breast browned in the skillet, plus apple sauce for dippies. We have *gallons* of the stuff in our root cellar, plus some bags in the freezer from when we ran out of canning jars.
Kiddo and I had tomato-okra soup with chicken. The tomato part was the very chunky sauce I canned about 14 months ago, it needs to be used and it was end of the zucchini season so their skins were tough, and nobody much liked that batch. BUT running a jar through the Foley food mill made a really nice soup base. I heated it up to a good boil, tossed some of my blanched frozen okra into soup bowls, added the chicken then poured the boiling hot soup over. By the time the okra thawed it was all perfect - and not only did Kiddo love it, but the 2 year old insisted on having some of mine. She probably ate about 1/3 of it, making Yum! Sounds! Yum! the whole time.
The reason it's kind of funny is that the "Tomatoes Taste Like Death" gene runs strongly in her dad's family, and each child has to be "tested" to see if they like tomatoes. The Boy *really* wanted to like tomatoes, hates that his sisters can nom the cherries out of the garden, but the last time he tried, I swear he nearly puked, actually grabbed a towel and was wiping his tongue with it.
That's about it, I also made mayo today and we got some kitchen cleaning out of the way. We actually had rain most of the day, which is not typical weather for us.
And speaking of weather - you folks around the Difficult Child area can expect a wet, snowy noreaster 'round Wednesday, according to the computer models. I'm sort of a weather geek too.
First - I love to spatchcock chicken. I've been a butcher/meat cutter, did who knows how many chickens in how many ways when I worked at the co-op. So boning a chicken is so much a no-brainer I can have fun with it. The kiddos think it's great when I make "flat chicken" - bone out everything but the wings and drumsticks, arrange the floppy carcasses on a rack over the deep pan, season with paprika, garlic and onion powder, salt & pepper, bake at 425 for an hour or something until the skin is crispy and meat is cooked through.
Well, in order of preference my chickens of choice are: backyard, Empire, Petaluma, Foster Farms. Not really trusting anything else. I'm like the only Jew (which is to say, brought up as such but have other ideas about religion these days) within a 30 mile radius, it seems like, so not driving 60 miles just to buy an Empire chicken. Petaluma is mostly over the border in CA, and our Wally's was out of Foster Farms.
So yesterday with no other options, Blacksmith came home with T*son brand. I trust T*son like I trust my daughter to not rifle my drawers, and if THEY can't be comfortable selling a whole chicken that doesn't have "up to 12% chicken broth added, chicken broth contains chicken, salt and 'flavorings'" then why should I trust their quality?
I drained off the nasty 12%, rinsed the heck outa the carcasses, wiped them dry, and performed my magic. They did ooze a lot of broth that went into the fridge, it's a treat for the dogs. The bones I boned out also go to the dogs - we feed our pups a raw diet and they aren't as brand-picky as I am. (We've been feeding them like that for years, they have brilliant white teeth, no dog breath, and heck - Cowboy the 2.5 lb deer-leg chihuahua is built like a tiny pocket pit-bull.)
The kids loved it of course. The 2 year old gets the drummettes, the 6 and 9 year old get the drumsticks and other wing parts, and we adults get everything else.
So today for lunch, the kids had sliced chicken breast browned in the skillet, plus apple sauce for dippies. We have *gallons* of the stuff in our root cellar, plus some bags in the freezer from when we ran out of canning jars.
Kiddo and I had tomato-okra soup with chicken. The tomato part was the very chunky sauce I canned about 14 months ago, it needs to be used and it was end of the zucchini season so their skins were tough, and nobody much liked that batch. BUT running a jar through the Foley food mill made a really nice soup base. I heated it up to a good boil, tossed some of my blanched frozen okra into soup bowls, added the chicken then poured the boiling hot soup over. By the time the okra thawed it was all perfect - and not only did Kiddo love it, but the 2 year old insisted on having some of mine. She probably ate about 1/3 of it, making Yum! Sounds! Yum! the whole time.
The reason it's kind of funny is that the "Tomatoes Taste Like Death" gene runs strongly in her dad's family, and each child has to be "tested" to see if they like tomatoes. The Boy *really* wanted to like tomatoes, hates that his sisters can nom the cherries out of the garden, but the last time he tried, I swear he nearly puked, actually grabbed a towel and was wiping his tongue with it.
That's about it, I also made mayo today and we got some kitchen cleaning out of the way. We actually had rain most of the day, which is not typical weather for us.
And speaking of weather - you folks around the Difficult Child area can expect a wet, snowy noreaster 'round Wednesday, according to the computer models. I'm sort of a weather geek too.
