Chicken Report

My little Ladies are doing great at their egg laying. Yesterday, we went to church in the morning and didn't let them out to roam until we came home (they have a small outdoor pen attached to their coop which they did go out in). When I went to let them out I looked in the nest box and found 5 eggs! I only have 5 girls so each one of them left me an egg. Two of them were a little wonky looking so I wonder if maybe they were the first eggs laid. On Saturday, I had got 3 eggs so that kind of makes sense (or possibly the other two laid somewhere that I haven't found yet). I'm not doing artificial light for the chickens (just a heat lamp on cold nights) so to get them all laying on one day in what is practically winter here is very good. Must be all the good food I feed them.

What do I feed my chickens? Well, they have have a bit of a smorgasbord. Each morning they get the kitchen scraps from the day before (veggie peels, bread crusts that the kids won't eat, leftover whey, yogurt, kefir, etc) and I throw some scratch out for them in the outside pen and around the coop. Usually at that time I let them out to roam (unless I have plans to be gone for a time during the day or the weather is inclement).

When they are roaming they can eat whatever they can find or looks good to them. There is still a little bit of grass in places, shrubs and a few bugs around.

Around 4 or 5 in the evening I put commercial laying mash in the feeder. I don't give them the commercial food earlier in the day because I want them to eat the other things offered to them. But by evening it is starting to get dark and the food in the feeder is a good enticement for them to find their way back to the coop. It sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. Often times they will be out playing in the yard until almost dark. Sometimes I have to go out three or four times before they are finally all in the coop.

We also have a container of oyster shells available for them and water in a few places. One of the nice things about them roaming is they find little stones which works as grit. And right now they have been enjoying leftover Halloween pumpkins that Joe brought home from work. I break off a couple of pieces for them each day. They usually devour it all and leave me the rind.

I would love to get the book Keeping Poultry and Rabbits on Scraps (pictured above). Apparently, it has some recipes and ideas for providing food for chickens entirely from leftover and scraps. I'd need to find another source for scraps, we do not generate enough to provide for the chickens completely.

I really enjoy keeping chickens. We had them when we lived in Oregon and enjoyed them then also. These chickens in some ways are different than those. We did not free range the Oregon ones (we lived on a road that led to a boat launch on the Columbia River so had a bit of boat traffic) and I think these chickens are more inquisitive and social. Whenever we are outside the chickens are right with us. We were working on a project on Saturday and kept having to move chickens out of our way. Two of them even jumped up in the back of our truck. Silly chickens.

Changes

When I started blogging I wanted to be able to have a record of the adventure we were on living in our camp trailer and planning to move half way across the country. And then when we got here I was able to document taking our property from a bare piece of land to a home. I love being able to show you my chickens , the wildlife that lives here, the snow and the changes that we are making to our property.

I have enjoyed sharing our real food adventure too. What I have discovered lately is that the food is taking over. If you have read here much you know that I am passionate (Joe still calls it obsessed) with preparing nutrient dense meals on our low food budget. I still want to share the other stuff going on here with the animals, house, etc and the result has been more than one post in a day on occasion. So to simplify things a bit, I've decided to have this blog just for family, home and property stuff and have a separate blog for food stuff.

I've transferred over some of the food posts to the new blog but left them here too-so if you are dying to look up how I made tongue tacos or the different ways I cook liver you can find it on either blog.


My food blog is Real Food for Less Money come visit me there to see our menus, recipes, and more.

Eat Raw

In the past when I thought of eating raw food I figured the occasional salad would be enough. I have to admit to not particularly enjoying salads so when I say occasional I should say rarely. Joe would kind of get after me because I would serve salad for dinner and encourage the children to eat it but somehow it wouldn't make it to my plate.

At the beginning of this year, reading through Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon and seeing how much she stressed consuming foods raw I knew I needed to re-think things a little bit. In the introduction section of Nourishing Traditions she has a section devoted to enzymes. What is an enzyme? "Enzymes are complex proteins that act as catalysts in almost every biochemical process that takes place in the body". Wow. Those sound important. Ms. Fallon goes on to say that enzymes fall into three categories; metabolic, digestive and food enzymes. The food enzymes are something that we should consider when planning our diets. Food enzymes are present in raw and fermented foods (heating over 118 degrees F kills these enzymes), help with digestion and actually allows the body to reduce its need to produce digestive enzymes. Eating a diet of primarily cooked foods can cause shortened life span, illness and lowered resistance to stress of all types.

With this information Joe and I have set out on a mission to increase the amount of raw and fermented foods in our families diet. We have done this through raw vegetables and fruits, fermented beverages, lacto-fermented vegetables, raw milk, and most recently raw beef. RAW BEEF?! Joe and I had eaten Carpaccio (Italian style raw beef) at a restaurant once and loved it. I wanted to try something like it at home. The Nourishing Traditions book has a section on Raw Meat Appetizers. The Carpaccio was in there along with a few others. The one that really caught my eye was Raw Beef, Vietnamese Style. It looked very good. I had most of the ingredients for it on hand and liked the concept. I decided to do a google search and see if I could find anything else similar. I found this recipe for Bo Tai Chanh Beef Carpaccio Vietnamese Style (not a truly raw recipe) which also sounded good. I combined the two and came up with a winner.


Vietnamese Style Raw Beef

1 pound grass fed beef, frozen for 14 days, partially thawed and sliced very thin

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon natural sweetener

3/4 cup fresh lemon juice

1/4 cup fresh lime juice

1 small onion, thinly sliced

1/2 cup crispy peanuts, finely chopped

1/2 cup crispy onions (see below)

3 green onions chopped (whites and greens)

chopped cilantro

lime wedges


I get beautiful grass fed beef each month from my beef CSA. There was a package of little steaks from October's delivery which looked perfect for this recipe. The most challenging part of this recipe was slicing the beef very thin, having the meat partially frozen helps with this. So does a very sharp knife.

Combine the olive oil, sweetener, lemon juice, lime juice; stir to mix. Add the thinly sliced beef and onion. Mix well. Marinate in the refrigerator for several hours (mine marinated about 5 hours). When ready to serve remove meat from marinade. Put on individual plates and top with peanuts, onion flakes, green onions and cilantro. Squeeze lime on top.

*Crispy onions- 1/2 cup dried onion flakes sauteed in olive oil and drained on paper towels (from Nourishing Traditions).


Joe and I loved this beef raw. The citrus marinade 'cooked' it just enough and gave it a wonderful flavor. Adding the toppings made it something special. For the children I seared each beef piece for about 5 seconds per side. They just aren't ready for raw beef.


What is your favorite raw or fermented food? Do you need some ideas on how to incorporate enzyme rich foods into your diet? Look here to see 50 great ideas from Cheeseslave.


This post is a contribution to Fight Back Friday hosted by Food Renegade.


Source: Nourishing Traditions pages 46, 47, 235

Congee (Sort of)

I was looking for a way to use fish broth and ingredients I had on hand. Internet searching found this fun site which talked about a rice porridge/soup dish called congee. I thought that sounded like a pretty good way to use the fish broth and combined some of the congee ideas to come up with a very yummy side dish which easily could have been our main dish.

Congee is supposed to be a kind of soup. It is made however thick that the person consuming it wishes it to be. When I made it instead of making a soup consistency I made it more of a casserole consistency (which I felt went better with our dinner). Congee is amazingly frugal with the most basic congee being rice and water. I upped the nutrition value a bit using bone broth and a few veggies. Even with those changes is was still incredibly inexpensive.

Congee Basics

1 cup white or brown rice rinsed until the water runs clear (the idea is to remove most of the starch)

6-12 cups of water or bone broth (depending on how thick you want your congee to be)

Combine the rice and water in a rice cooker (do not fill your rice cooker more than 70% to allow room for cooking). If you do not have a rice cooker you can cook it on the stove top. But for ease of preparation I loved using the rice cooker. Look here for other cooking methods.

Add three thinly sliced carrots

Put the cover on the cooker and turn it on. I went back and stirred it every 10 minutes or so to help break down the rice. In this picture I used 1 1/4 cup white rice (I try to make food familiar when I'm trying new things and my family loves white rice. Next time I'll use brown), 7 cups fish stock and the carrots.

While the rice was cooking I cooked some kale and mushrooms in coconut oil.

When the rice was finished cooking (my rice cooker shut itself off of cook onto warm and it looked good and done). I stirred in the kale/mushroom mixture and 2 teaspoons of coconut oil.


Here is the finished dish. Rich with healthy bone broth, carrots, kale and coconut oil. The options for making this 'Congee' are endless and I look forward to making this again.

Have you ever had congee? What was in it?

This post is a contribution to Pennywise Platter at The Nourishing Gourmet

Exciting Day!

Here it is! Our first egg. And she put it in the nest right where she was supposed to. What a good little chicken!

Design a Casserole

A few weeks ago I mentioned how I like to use a formula for making muffins. Having a formula as opposed to a recipe allows me a little freedom to develop the muffin with whatever ingredients I have on hand, want to use up, or get creative and mix up a new flavor plus it saves us money because I'm not buying special ingredients. Wardeh at gnowfglins.com has been expanding on the idea of a basic muffin recipe and I'm incorporating a few of her ideas into my formula and they are turning out great.

The original muffin formula came from The Complete Tightwad Gazette by Amy Dacyczyn. In her book she also shows a recipe for a Seafood Casserole and offers a formula for making a seafood casserole for less than the original version using ingredients on hand.

The original formula looked like this

7 or 8 ounce of pasta- prepared

1/2 cup milk or white wine

1/2 cup mayonnaise or salad dressing

1/2 teaspoon dill

1 can cream of something soup OR homemade white sauce

2 cans of tuna, salmon, crab or shrimp (she used tuna)

1 cup cheese

Topping (see below)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix wine with mayonnaise. Add the cheese, soup and dill. Gently combine the noodles and the seafood with the moist ingredients. Pour the mixture into a 1 1/2 quart casserole dish. Cover and bake for 30 minutes. Remove the cover, top with the Topping, and bake for an additional 5 minutes. Serve hot.

Topping: Stir 2 Tablespoon melted butter into 1 cup of soft bread crumbs. You can also try 1 cup of crushed corn chips, chow mein noodles, or french-fried onions, or 1/2 cup of sliced almonds.

I've used this simple idea for years to create our casseroles but expanded it a bit because we don't always want a 'seafood' casserole. These days my ingredients look a little different as I try to use non- processed ingredients. Of course, casseroles are a great way to use up leftover meats , leftover rice or leftover veggies. We like the occasional casserole. It's Comfort Food.

My Current Casserole Formula

Starch- could be prepared rice pasta (6 or 7 ounce dry), cooked rice (3 or 4 cups), or peeled and sliced raw potatoes (I use 8 for my large size family)

Veggies- Any combination of leftover veggies, carrots (need to precook if using pasta or rice), onions, green pepper, celery, etc (about 2 cups total)

Meat- browned hamburger, leftover chicken, pork, beef, antelope-okay, probably just at my house (1 1/2 to 2 cups)

Liquid- This is what replaces the cream soup. Could be homemade cream of whatever soup, gravy, white sauce, tomato sauce (2 cups or maybe a little more)

Seasoning/Spices- I just put in whatever sounds good with the meat I'm using plus sea salt and pepper

Topping- cheese, bread crumbs, properly prepared chopped or sliced nuts

I usually make my casserole in a 9x13 pan. I put the starch on the bottom (if I'm using potatoes I salt them before I do the next layer), then layer on the veggies, followed by the meat, mix my seasoning in with my liquid and then pour it over the top of the whole thing. Cover and bake at 350 for about 30 minutes for pasta or rice. For potatoes about 1 1/2 hours (until potatoes are done). Remove cover and put on Topping. Cook another 5 minutes.

Some of our favorite combinations:

Potato and Pork- Peel and slice the potatoes, add fresh sliced carrots, chopped green peppers and sliced onions that have been cooked a little bit in olive oil. Bite size pieces of leftover pork. For the liquid a quick and easy gravy (made out of chicken broth). For the topping, shredded cheddar and Parmesan cheeses. One thing that makes this casserole extremely good is generously greasing the pan with bacon grease before putting in the potatoes. YUM. We had this one last night.

Beef and Rice- Leftover cooked rice, cooked carrots, corn, browned hamburger, thin beef broth gravy, sliced almonds.

Beef and Veggie- sliced potatoes, carrots, green pepper, corn, browned hamburger, tomato sauce, cheese

Chicken and Rice- Leftover cooked rice, onions and celery (sauteed together in olive oil), green beans (cooked or leftover), chicken (cut in bite size pieces), thin white sauce, Parmesan cheese.

Does your family have a favorite casserole?

This post is a contribution to Real Food Wednesday hosted this week by Kelly the Kitchen Kop.

Tuesday Twister November 10

I love doing my Tuesday Twister posts. It helps me to think back over what we ate, what was a success and what wasn't. Plus I really enjoy seeing what others have been doing in their kitchens. I get the best ideas from all of you.


This was dinner Saturday night. Antelope steaks (actually back strap). I marinated it in lemon juice and rosemary for a couple of hours. Then skillet cooked it. After the steaks were done I made a sauce out of the pan juices. It turned out very good. Served with cooked carrots topped with butter and honey and baked potato.



Pizza night. I have been making four pizzas lately. It feeds us well and gives us leftovers for lunches and snacks on the weekend. I don't have any pizza pans so I use cookie sheets and cake pans. My family doesn't mind if their pizzas aren't round. From front to back we had Veggie Pizza (sauce, cheese, olives, green pepper, pineapple and mushrooms), Pepperoni and pineapple, Cheese and Black olive and Mexi Pizza (sauce+salsa, re-fried beans, hamburger, green pepper, onions, mushrooms, cheese, topped with taco sauce after baking). I use this recipe for the crust, which I think I may have found from a Tuesday Twister. We love it.

This was my experiment dinner for the week. I'd been playing it pretty safe lately so it was time to try something new and fun. We went fishing on Saturday and came home with eight trout. After Joe cleaned them and filleted them he gave me the bones to use for broth. I'd never made fish broth before and wasn't sure how it would turn out or what to do with it. The broth turned out good, not too fishy but not too meek either. I decided to make something resembling congee with it. Along with the congee and sticking with an Asian theme we had Bo Tai Chanh Beef Cappuccino Vietnamese Style. Huh? It is thinly sliced grass fed beef that is marinated in citrus. It's meant to be eaten raw- think ceviche. I'll admit though to cooking it for the kids. It was so good both ways. I used a combination of a couple of recipes to adapt to my ingredients. We topped the beef with some fun things like cilantro, chopped peanuts, green onions, fried onions and a squeeze of lime. Yum! The congee was inspired from this site which shows tons of ways to make congee. I made ours very thick (thicker than it was supposed to be) so it could be a side dish with our beef. I loved the congee. Joe liked it. KiKi and Lulu and Ogre all tried it. They admitted that it tasted good but they had watched me make the broth and it weirded them out too much (I guess I shouldn't have shown them the fish carcasses cooking). Angel did not try it. I was super please with both of these items and plan on making it again. I knew I had a winner when Lulu told me that my 'special dinner' was good.

What has been Twisting in your kitchen? Check out gnowfglins to see what's Twisting in other kitchens.