Breaking Bread...and Beans

This past Thursday marked the 237th anniversary of our nation's founding. Americans from coast to coast celebrated with thunderous fireworks, patriotic melodies, and gluttonous cookouts.  Many inches of rain falling on south central Kentucky added a particularly sloshy feel to our week's activities. Our grills may have been dampened, but our spirits were not. Both sides of our family still gathered for belt-loosening cook-ins complete with mountains of potato salad and rivers of sweet tea.  There was much story-telling, many good laughs, and lots of family catch-up...a perfect holiday if you ask me.  Surprisingly, of all the meals, traditions, and visiting this week, it was another communal activity -- one significantly less detrimental to the waist-line -- that lingered in my mind as I sat to write this week's post.  It was the ritual of breaking green beans.

Kitchen Craze

Inevitable Aftermath

They say that time flies when you're having fun, so I guess it's a good thing that I'm a little amazed to recap the litany of items Weldon and I have concocted in the kitchen over the past couple weeks.  This morning alone I had three recipes on the docket: pizza dough, garlic scape pesto, and fermented sauerkraut.  Yesterday I shelled, cooked, and put up a gallon of fresh peas in the freezer.  We had an extensive list of tasty ideas piled up from winter and spring -- these would be inspiration enough -- but our dose of gifts from the garden has also begun increasing daily. Pleased as pigs in mud, we've kicked into high gear in the kitchen to make use of these early days of summer.  Before we know it, there'll be salsa, corn, and pickles, oh my!

One Wild Ride

Not in Kansas Anymore!

When I wrote the previous post I naively expected my next one to be dated a bit sooner than this.  The break that I spoke of was in fact a two-week road trip.  Though we cruised back into our own driveway a week-and-a-half ago, I've barely sat down since, never mind sitting in front of my laptop to make coherent sentences into a post.  There's a ton going on at the homestead -- there should be, it's June!  Before I get to posting about gardening, fermenting, canning, and such, I'd like to share a few snippets from the trip.  For my husband and I, travel is one of our luxuries and priorities in life.  One of the many reasons we live frugally is so that when opportunity lends itself, we can hit the road or board a plane. Our idea of travel incorporates a whole lot of the same simple pleasures that we embrace in our day-to-day: gathering with friends, eating scrumptious local food, appreciating the beauty of nature, learning about our surroundings, and enjoying each other's company.  Our recent journey over 4,000-miles, 10 states, and 4 Canadian provinces was no exception. Our trek took us to Montreal, northern Maine, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Acadia National Park, and through my childhood stomping grounds in Connecticut.  The route was a perfect mixture of new and familiar destinations coupled with hearty doses of visiting.  It was exactly the leisurely adventure we were hoping for.

School's Out!

The final bell has rung and the halls have emptied!  Summer is actually here…at least for those of us in school. I started full-time teaching in March and since then I've made some great strides and really enjoyed the classroom time with my seventh and eighth grade students.  Before the garden begins to explode with produce, canning season hits high gear, and the temperatures soar, I’m going to take a short break.  Don’t worry, when I return to the blogosphere I’ll be full swing in uninterrupted homestead life for the next few months -- I can’t wait!

How To Process A Chicken

About eight weeks ago I posted about our newly-arrived flock of one hundred chicks.  True to my word, this post follows up with their story.  In an era where most of the population is disassociated from their food sources, it can be a difficult fact to face that an animal dies in order to be a part of our diet.  On our homestead this is a revered truth, a part of the circle of life.  Processing your own meat isn’t for everyone, but there are a growing number of people intrigued by skillsets of yesteryear such as this one.  Like my husband and me, these folks are eager to be more self-sufficient and crave a means to be in touch with nature and their food.   Raising food at home is also an excellent way to live frugally while eating extraordinarily well.  Chickens are small animals that are relatively easy to raise and fairly quick to mature; this makes them a good starting place for those interested in learning how to process their own meat.  Below is a how-to with plenty of photographs from our most recent chicken-processing experience.  Please note that while we borrowed specialized equipment for this large batch, it is just as simple to do it the old way when working with smaller batches of birds (hot water in a pot for scalding and hand-plucking the feathers).  To everything there is a season and on our farm this year the season for meat chickens has come to a close.  

Please Note: Due to the How-To nature of the topic, this post contains somewhat graphic images of the transition from a live chicken to a kitchen-ready carcass.  This is not meant to shock readers, but rather to educate those interested in the step-by-step process of a truly local, farm-raised, homestead kitchen staple.  

Love & Marriage

Weldon and I celebrated our third wedding anniversary last week!  I know I’m deviating a bit from my usual

kitchen, homestead, and farm topics, but as I see it, all things in this life are interconnected.  Weldon and I are the core of this homestead and as such our marriage plays a vital role in how our homestead, kitchen, and farm exist.  Some readers may think this topic too personal or maybe a bit presumptuous for such a newly-married person.  I have no disclaimer there, but perhaps you’ll get a good chuckle from this week’s story and can appreciate a dose of young love. 

Me and My Roasted Chicken

You might think that running a farm business to raise pastured protein would solidify my access to every sort of meaty delight.  Like a kid in a candy shop I could feast to my heart’s content on whatever came to mind!  This is a half truth.  Okay, maybe a two-thirds truth.  The whole truth is that, up until last year when we closed our retail business, I had access to a lot of whole chickens which in my mind meant the breast was usually dry, leg quarters were rarely cooked right, and in general, the dish was ho-hum unless it had some awesome saucy concoction to distract me.  Ugh, who wanted to fuss with all that!  This post chronicles how I fell back in love with chicken when -- on a wonderful, life-changing day -- our foodie friend Chris in Nashville gave us a marvelous how-to for roasting a whole bird.  Since then, the days of blah chicken have been abolished thanks to this reliable recipe that’s become one of our family favorites!  Best-Ever, Super-Easy, Skillet-Roasted Chicken