We had a fun little visit with Natalie and Conner this afternoon. The highlights included fun with play dough, picking the last of the blueberries, some time in the hammock, a tree climbing lesson, Linda's cotton candy machine, and a walk to the end of the street. At Conner's request I placed him up in a crook of one of our big cherry trees. He looked like he thought he was pretty special sitting there. He had his eye on a much higher branch and asked for my help to get there, but I declined. I told him grandpa was too old for tree climbing. Actually that wasn't entirely correct. What I'm too old for is falling out of trees. I'm not afraid of heights, but I like the security of a ladder for my tree climbing.
Conner and Natalie are both fairly enthusiastic little berry pickers. We transferred their berries into ziplock plastic bags which they carried around with them for the remainder of their visit. When Conner accidentally dropped a few blueberries Linda cautioned him about stepping on them. He then referred to the blueberries he had stepped on as "Dead ones".
I went over this evening to the Parrott's house to assist Cassie in candling her chicken eggs. She borrowed our incubator and has had about 20 eggs in it for the past week. I didn't see one egg which I could say for sure wasn't fertile. It's more difficult to tell with dark shelled eggs so we will probably know better in another week. At one week a darker area is visible where the embryo is developing. At two weeks the dark shape of the developing chick is supposed to fill about 2/3 of the space within the shell. We may have some logistical problems if all twenty eggs hatch out. I don't think that many chicks will fit in my cage for very long. I think we will have to find a big cardboard box instead. I suspect she won't end up with all twenty hatching.
I spent about 7 hours at the bee store at various time during the day. The store is normally closed on Mondays, but I had to ship out 2,000 molded beeswax bars to a company in Florida. This company makes waterproof survival suits that are worn by merchant seamen and commercial fishermen all over the world. Apparently they use beeswax to lubricate/waterproof the zippers. We made up special molds with the company logo last year so this is the second year we've done this for them. They are sending the beeswax bars to a client in the Netherlands, probably a shipping company. So I'm a wannabe locavore, organic gardener, who is still heavily involved in the global economy. Some of our bee equipment is made in places like Pakistan and China. I sell honey extractors and a mite medication that are made in Italy and an fungicidal antibiotic that is manufactured in Canada. I guess it was high time that I made something that was shipped back overseas.
Monday, October 1, 2012
Friday, September 28, 2012
Whole Wheat Sour Dough Pancakes
I've seriously neglected my sour dough starter over the summer. I just haven't had the time to make bread as often as the starter needs to be fed. About a month ago I began using the starter to make sour dough pancakes and was very pleased with the results. Even more important, my sweetie really liked them. Today I tried a new wrinkle and made whole wheat sour dough pancakes. That actually made them 1/2 whole wheat as the starter was made with unbleached bread flour. They turned out to be fairly light and fluffy which I consider an important feature of a good pancake. The recipe I used was as follows:
1 one cup of sour dough starter
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1 cup buttermilk
1 tablespoon canola oil
The pancakes were absolutely wonderful with the addition of some orange blossom honey and a glass of milk. Sadly, Linda has a touch of the flu and wasn't able to enjoy the pancakes. Since I made a lot more than I should eat at a sitting I ended up feeding most of them to the chickens. At least that way I'll recoup the egg that I used in the recipe. Now that is serious recycling.
If anyone wants to try my sour dough starter I would be happy to send some to you. If you aspire to be a serious sour dough purist you may want to try your hand at capturing your own sour dough culture. It really is quite easy, assuming you have an apple tree in your yard. I grew my starter from a couple of apples I picked in our back yard. Instructions can be found in my blog post dated November 20, 2011.
My ukulele book from the library finally came due. The only song I managed to memorize was the "Sloop John B"., a cautionary tale about the violation of the Word of Wisdom..i.e. bad things happen when you get drunk. However, I'm eight chords ahead of where I started, I can tune it, and I'm a little more comfortable with a few strum patterns.. Now I'm looking for a ukulele book to purchase. It would be nice to find one with at least a few Hawaiian songs. My son informed me that a local guitar store has a ukulele class on Saturday mornings. Unfortunately, I will have to work most Saturdays for the next month or so.
1 one cup of sour dough starter
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1 cup buttermilk
1 tablespoon canola oil
The pancakes were absolutely wonderful with the addition of some orange blossom honey and a glass of milk. Sadly, Linda has a touch of the flu and wasn't able to enjoy the pancakes. Since I made a lot more than I should eat at a sitting I ended up feeding most of them to the chickens. At least that way I'll recoup the egg that I used in the recipe. Now that is serious recycling.
If anyone wants to try my sour dough starter I would be happy to send some to you. If you aspire to be a serious sour dough purist you may want to try your hand at capturing your own sour dough culture. It really is quite easy, assuming you have an apple tree in your yard. I grew my starter from a couple of apples I picked in our back yard. Instructions can be found in my blog post dated November 20, 2011.
My ukulele book from the library finally came due. The only song I managed to memorize was the "Sloop John B"., a cautionary tale about the violation of the Word of Wisdom..i.e. bad things happen when you get drunk. However, I'm eight chords ahead of where I started, I can tune it, and I'm a little more comfortable with a few strum patterns.. Now I'm looking for a ukulele book to purchase. It would be nice to find one with at least a few Hawaiian songs. My son informed me that a local guitar store has a ukulele class on Saturday mornings. Unfortunately, I will have to work most Saturdays for the next month or so.
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Grape Harvest
I stayed home with a cold today and ended up feeling better than I expected by late afternoon. Of course this was after I had already cancelled several activities. Linda watched Britton, Lucy, and John this afternoon so I enjoyed their company somewhat at arms length in order to avoid passing along my cold. Its fun to hear their happy little voices, even if I can't be as close as I would like to be.
Three year old John decided he wanted to be outside so I took a nice little walk with him along a portion of the access road on the north side of our lot. While we stopped to admire the ducks I noticed the grapes growing over the duck pen were getting ripe. This particular variety of grape, named Valiant, is a very early concord type of grape. They have seeds, but are smaller than Concord grapes and ripen about three weeks earlier than Concords. The big clue for me that they are ripe enough to pick is when the little birds start to eat them. John found them to be a little tart for his liking, but they still make pretty good juice at that point. I've found that if I wait until they are completely ripened, the little birds collect too large of a tax on my grape harvest.
After Beth had picked up the kids, I got out the steamer juicer and picked enough grapes to fill the basket of the juicer. There are still more grapes to be picked. I only got three quarts of juice from that first picking. My other three grape varieties, Interlaken, Canadice, and Flame, probably won't be ripe enough to pick until mid October. I'm pretty limited as to what varieties I can grow in our maritime climate. Interlaken and Canadice produce dependably every year. The Flame plants produce produce grapes every other year at best. I know the official first day of fall was September 22, but it doesn't really feel like fall to me until I start harvesting the grapes.
My three Americauna hens have started to lay. I've collected a number of the cutest little blue pullet eggs over the past week. The blue eggs go nicely with the light brown eggs from the Rhode Island Red and the dark brown eggs from the Domeniques. The runner ducks stopped laying a few weeks ago or I would also have white eggs in the mix. That should actually work out very well for us as the runner ducks started laying at the end of January and had close to a two month head start on the chickens. If the chickens lay later into the year I won't have quite so long a period where we don't get fresh eggs. I could increase the length of their egg laying period by adding some artificial light on a timer to the poultry pens. I suspect it may be healthier for the poultry if I don't try to squeeze every last egg from them in the shortest period of time. If I were in the egg business I would probably have a different attitude and demand higher production from the poultry.
Three year old John decided he wanted to be outside so I took a nice little walk with him along a portion of the access road on the north side of our lot. While we stopped to admire the ducks I noticed the grapes growing over the duck pen were getting ripe. This particular variety of grape, named Valiant, is a very early concord type of grape. They have seeds, but are smaller than Concord grapes and ripen about three weeks earlier than Concords. The big clue for me that they are ripe enough to pick is when the little birds start to eat them. John found them to be a little tart for his liking, but they still make pretty good juice at that point. I've found that if I wait until they are completely ripened, the little birds collect too large of a tax on my grape harvest.
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| Ripe Valiant grapes growing over the duck pen |
After Beth had picked up the kids, I got out the steamer juicer and picked enough grapes to fill the basket of the juicer. There are still more grapes to be picked. I only got three quarts of juice from that first picking. My other three grape varieties, Interlaken, Canadice, and Flame, probably won't be ripe enough to pick until mid October. I'm pretty limited as to what varieties I can grow in our maritime climate. Interlaken and Canadice produce dependably every year. The Flame plants produce produce grapes every other year at best. I know the official first day of fall was September 22, but it doesn't really feel like fall to me until I start harvesting the grapes.
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| A nice variety of colors |
My three Americauna hens have started to lay. I've collected a number of the cutest little blue pullet eggs over the past week. The blue eggs go nicely with the light brown eggs from the Rhode Island Red and the dark brown eggs from the Domeniques. The runner ducks stopped laying a few weeks ago or I would also have white eggs in the mix. That should actually work out very well for us as the runner ducks started laying at the end of January and had close to a two month head start on the chickens. If the chickens lay later into the year I won't have quite so long a period where we don't get fresh eggs. I could increase the length of their egg laying period by adding some artificial light on a timer to the poultry pens. I suspect it may be healthier for the poultry if I don't try to squeeze every last egg from them in the shortest period of time. If I were in the egg business I would probably have a different attitude and demand higher production from the poultry.
Monday, September 24, 2012
Surreal Moment at the Bee Store
This little anecdote is for the benefit of all those who are familiar with the LDS inspirational speaker/humourist named John Bytheway. So I'm working at the bee store last week and I am helping a customer who is asking me some beekeeping questions. At some point in the conversation he decides to introduce himself to me and says,"I'm John, by the way.." As it turns out his last name was not really Bytheway.
I had a pretty nice day today. I had to drive down to Kent in order to pick up 5 gallon and one gallon plastic buckets for the bee store. Its been a good honey year so container sales are up. Linda was feeling good and decided to accompany me. That made the whole day a lot more fun and much less like work. My old beater cargo van isn't much to look at so I'm glad Linda isn't too proud to be seen in it. We spent most of the drive to Kent making plans for this coming summer's cousin camp.
We have decided on an Hawaiian theme but we haven't nailed down the location. That means whatever tune we use this time for the Cousin Camp song will be something suitable to accompany with an ukulele. We've even found someone who can give some of the local cousins hula lessons. It also means we get to plan a luau, and have cool cousin camp uniform options (Hawaiian shirts and straw hats). I'm seeing a lot of up sides to this particular theme choice. We'll have 21 kids there next year so it will not be possible to transport them anywhere for activities. We need to find a site where we can do everything we want to do right there at the one location.
Kent, Washington has a rather large industrial warehouse area. It seems that whatever you want to buy, someone is selling it out of a warehouse somewhere in Kent. After I loaded up on buckets and a few other things. we stopped by IKEA for lunch. All in all, it was a pretty cheap date, but a good time.
While I am on the subject of the surreal, I just finished watching a weird Monday Night Football game. The Seahawks beat the Packers 14 to 12 with some very strange officiating calls throughout the game by the replacement referees. I have sympathy for Packer fans as I know how I felt when the Seahawks were treated unfairly by the officials in their one Super Bowl appearance.
I had a pretty nice day today. I had to drive down to Kent in order to pick up 5 gallon and one gallon plastic buckets for the bee store. Its been a good honey year so container sales are up. Linda was feeling good and decided to accompany me. That made the whole day a lot more fun and much less like work. My old beater cargo van isn't much to look at so I'm glad Linda isn't too proud to be seen in it. We spent most of the drive to Kent making plans for this coming summer's cousin camp.
We have decided on an Hawaiian theme but we haven't nailed down the location. That means whatever tune we use this time for the Cousin Camp song will be something suitable to accompany with an ukulele. We've even found someone who can give some of the local cousins hula lessons. It also means we get to plan a luau, and have cool cousin camp uniform options (Hawaiian shirts and straw hats). I'm seeing a lot of up sides to this particular theme choice. We'll have 21 kids there next year so it will not be possible to transport them anywhere for activities. We need to find a site where we can do everything we want to do right there at the one location.
Kent, Washington has a rather large industrial warehouse area. It seems that whatever you want to buy, someone is selling it out of a warehouse somewhere in Kent. After I loaded up on buckets and a few other things. we stopped by IKEA for lunch. All in all, it was a pretty cheap date, but a good time.
While I am on the subject of the surreal, I just finished watching a weird Monday Night Football game. The Seahawks beat the Packers 14 to 12 with some very strange officiating calls throughout the game by the replacement referees. I have sympathy for Packer fans as I know how I felt when the Seahawks were treated unfairly by the officials in their one Super Bowl appearance.
Saturday, September 22, 2012
Pole Beans Update
On September 10th I wrote about our bumper crop of pole beans and how I was trying lacto-fermented green beans this year. I thought I should do a little update for those who are curious as to how that is working. After a mere twelve days the beans have developed a definite tangy flavor but at the same time they still taste like green beans. Linda and I both like the flavor which should be no great surprise since we both really like sour kraut. The beans shrunk a little bit, turned a paler shade of green, and the water turned cloudy. They are now about the same color as cooked green beans. They don't look disgusting yet, but we will see what happens over the next month or so.
While I will eat green beans raw, I definitely prefer the flavor of cooked green beans. So far I find that I like the flavor of the raw lacto-fermented beans better than raw green beans and about the same as I like the cooked green beans. We'll see if that opinion holds up after the beans have lacto-fermented for another month or so. I haven't yet tried cooking the lacto-fermented beans, but I'm optimistic that I will like them. I'm sure any vegetable can be improved with the addition of bacon but I'm thinking the lacto-fermented green beans might be able to stand on their own. I'm optimistic enough that I did another gallon of beans this evening.
This method of preserving green beans is so much easier than pressure canning. You simply have to cut off the ends and tips, pack the beans into a sterile jar, add the salt water and put on the cap. The first gallon of lacto-fermented beans I did in a gallon jar with the flip bail and rubber gasket. I don't have any other jars like that so I used two half gallon canning jars today. I make up the salt water solution by bringing the water to a boil, then add 1/4 cup of plain salt for each quart of water. I wait for the water to cool before I pour it over the beans. I used plain salt because iodized salt can cause pickles to darken. I suspect it would have the same negative effect on the green beans.
I picked an ear of my indian corn this afternoon as a test to see how well it is drying down. It is starting to taste starchy, but it isn't close to where I would like it to be. If doesn't dry down significantly within the next two weeks I will probably have to pick it anyway and let it dry over the floor vents up in the loft. It all depends on when the rains start.
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| Our prolific Blue Lake pole beans |
While I will eat green beans raw, I definitely prefer the flavor of cooked green beans. So far I find that I like the flavor of the raw lacto-fermented beans better than raw green beans and about the same as I like the cooked green beans. We'll see if that opinion holds up after the beans have lacto-fermented for another month or so. I haven't yet tried cooking the lacto-fermented beans, but I'm optimistic that I will like them. I'm sure any vegetable can be improved with the addition of bacon but I'm thinking the lacto-fermented green beans might be able to stand on their own. I'm optimistic enough that I did another gallon of beans this evening.
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| Lacto-fermented green beans at 12 days |
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| I'm glad I don't have to can all of these green beans every three days. |
I picked an ear of my indian corn this afternoon as a test to see how well it is drying down. It is starting to taste starchy, but it isn't close to where I would like it to be. If doesn't dry down significantly within the next two weeks I will probably have to pick it anyway and let it dry over the floor vents up in the loft. It all depends on when the rains start.
Friday, September 21, 2012
Chicks in Oregon
I made a trip to the Portland area earlier this week. I had to fit in another trip to see grandchildren before my lone employee takes the month of October off to go hunting in Wyoming. This allowed me to deliver some of our surplus chickens to Sarah and further reduce the number of poultry mouths I will have to feed through the winter months. The Dominique hens seem to have a strong mother instinct as all three of them have managed to set on a nest of eggs this summer and hatch out chicks. So I drove to Portland with five six week old pullets in a cardboard box. I think one of them may actually be a little rooster but its hard to tell with young chickens. People go to school for about six months or more to learn how to vent sex chicks and they still only get 90 percent correctly sexed. I find it easier to just wait until the roosters start to crow.
Sarah's kids were delighted with the arrival of the chickens. She has several little wannabe farmers in her family. We went to a feed store the following morning to pick up a feeder and a waterer. We were surprised to discover that particular feed store still had baby chicks for sale. Sarah jumped at the opportunity and let the girls pick out ten baby chicks to go with the older pullets I had brought them. Her husband, in a moment of weakness, had consented to let her do some chicks in the garage. Sarah had thought it was already too late to get chicks this year. The purchase of the baby chicks complicated things as they now needed two feeders, two waterers, two types of chicken feed, and a heat lamp. They also needed two little cardboard boxes in which to transport the chicks so each of the younger girls could hold chicks on her lap. By late morning the older chickens were happily pecking away in their new home in a chicken tractor at a nearby friend's house. Meanwhile, the baby chicks were peeping their little hearts out in a cardboard box in the Kang's garage.
Baby chicks are serious kid magnets and are much more effective babysitters than a television set. Hannah turned out to be the most dedicated foster hen as she spent most of the remainder of that first day hanging out in the garage with the chicks. An added bonus for the kids is the fact that they now get to read the newspaper comics every day as they are recycling their neighbor's newspapers into chick bedding. The next day Sarah found Elise quietly sitting on a chair in the garage, holding a chick in one hand while reading the newspaper comics. It sounds like Elise has found a new happy place.
After a morning dedicated to poultry, I drove to Portland with Sarah and granddaughter Chloe to watch granddaughter Rachel play in a junior varsity soccer game. We stopped at Nike in Beaverton and picked up Sarah's husband, Chris, en route to the game. Serendipitously, Rachel scored two goals as Forest Grove won the game 3-0. I took lots of pictures. but most didn't turn out very well. It's hard to take great action pictures with an iPhone. I did get a really great picture of the opposing goalie's back as Rachel scored one of her goals. The game was even more lopsided than the score showed as ninety percent of the action took place in their opponents' half of the field. Rachel modestly attributed her two goals to the fact that her team's forwards had an off day. They have won several games 11-0 so I guess a mere three goals could seem like an off day.
I spent Wednesday with daughter Rachel and her family. I visited a rock shop with Rachel in the morning. That is a hobby I could really get into if I were retired for real. Luckily, Lance and Luna had early release from school that day and got out at 1:30 pm. Their school had dress like a pirate day to celebrate National Talk Like a Pirate Day. Since their school is 70 percent hispanic, the sign on their reader board was something like "Habla Como uno Pirato". We picked up some Mediterranian takeout as we walked home with the kids. Rachel was excited for me to try the fabulous tabouleh she gets from the Bagdad Cafe, one of her favorite local restaurants. They include some mint leaves in their tabouleh which is a big change from the way I make it. Unfortunately they were out of tabouleh, but the baba ganoush (an eggplant dish), hummus, and bakhlava were all pretty good. I'll have to try the tabouleh on my next visit. I've seen mint included in tabouleh recipes and have been interested in trying it that way. However, my primary tabouleh customer is Linda who prefers I leave out the mint leaves.
I got the grand tour of Rachel's garden and and actually got to eat a fresh fig from one of the fig trees I had given her several years ago. We discussed their little green house, seed saving, and Rachel's plans for her garden. We also harvested her Rockwell dry beans which Lance help me shell with great enthusiasm. Of course her dry beans are running a week or so ahead of mine due to Portland's warmer weather. Lance showed me his really cool wall mounted hot wheels track and I got to demonstrate my improving skills on the ukulele. I say improving skills because that is the only direction in which they can go. Luna is really excited because Chet is shopping for a drum set. Luna really wants to learn to play the drums.
I finally left Hillsboro at about 6:30 p.m. and headed home to Snohomish. All in all it was a great trip, but way too short. I will miss the bee store when we get it sold, but it does tie me down. I am really looking forward to having more time to spend with family.
Sarah's kids were delighted with the arrival of the chickens. She has several little wannabe farmers in her family. We went to a feed store the following morning to pick up a feeder and a waterer. We were surprised to discover that particular feed store still had baby chicks for sale. Sarah jumped at the opportunity and let the girls pick out ten baby chicks to go with the older pullets I had brought them. Her husband, in a moment of weakness, had consented to let her do some chicks in the garage. Sarah had thought it was already too late to get chicks this year. The purchase of the baby chicks complicated things as they now needed two feeders, two waterers, two types of chicken feed, and a heat lamp. They also needed two little cardboard boxes in which to transport the chicks so each of the younger girls could hold chicks on her lap. By late morning the older chickens were happily pecking away in their new home in a chicken tractor at a nearby friend's house. Meanwhile, the baby chicks were peeping their little hearts out in a cardboard box in the Kang's garage.
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| Grand Daughter Elise and her new best friend |
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| The baby chicks' new home in the Kang's garage |
Baby chicks are serious kid magnets and are much more effective babysitters than a television set. Hannah turned out to be the most dedicated foster hen as she spent most of the remainder of that first day hanging out in the garage with the chicks. An added bonus for the kids is the fact that they now get to read the newspaper comics every day as they are recycling their neighbor's newspapers into chick bedding. The next day Sarah found Elise quietly sitting on a chair in the garage, holding a chick in one hand while reading the newspaper comics. It sounds like Elise has found a new happy place.
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| Rachel looking determined as she kicks the ball towards the goal. |
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| Rachel tries for an assist while her dad watches in the background |
After a morning dedicated to poultry, I drove to Portland with Sarah and granddaughter Chloe to watch granddaughter Rachel play in a junior varsity soccer game. We stopped at Nike in Beaverton and picked up Sarah's husband, Chris, en route to the game. Serendipitously, Rachel scored two goals as Forest Grove won the game 3-0. I took lots of pictures. but most didn't turn out very well. It's hard to take great action pictures with an iPhone. I did get a really great picture of the opposing goalie's back as Rachel scored one of her goals. The game was even more lopsided than the score showed as ninety percent of the action took place in their opponents' half of the field. Rachel modestly attributed her two goals to the fact that her team's forwards had an off day. They have won several games 11-0 so I guess a mere three goals could seem like an off day.
I spent Wednesday with daughter Rachel and her family. I visited a rock shop with Rachel in the morning. That is a hobby I could really get into if I were retired for real. Luckily, Lance and Luna had early release from school that day and got out at 1:30 pm. Their school had dress like a pirate day to celebrate National Talk Like a Pirate Day. Since their school is 70 percent hispanic, the sign on their reader board was something like "Habla Como uno Pirato". We picked up some Mediterranian takeout as we walked home with the kids. Rachel was excited for me to try the fabulous tabouleh she gets from the Bagdad Cafe, one of her favorite local restaurants. They include some mint leaves in their tabouleh which is a big change from the way I make it. Unfortunately they were out of tabouleh, but the baba ganoush (an eggplant dish), hummus, and bakhlava were all pretty good. I'll have to try the tabouleh on my next visit. I've seen mint included in tabouleh recipes and have been interested in trying it that way. However, my primary tabouleh customer is Linda who prefers I leave out the mint leaves.
I got the grand tour of Rachel's garden and and actually got to eat a fresh fig from one of the fig trees I had given her several years ago. We discussed their little green house, seed saving, and Rachel's plans for her garden. We also harvested her Rockwell dry beans which Lance help me shell with great enthusiasm. Of course her dry beans are running a week or so ahead of mine due to Portland's warmer weather. Lance showed me his really cool wall mounted hot wheels track and I got to demonstrate my improving skills on the ukulele. I say improving skills because that is the only direction in which they can go. Luna is really excited because Chet is shopping for a drum set. Luna really wants to learn to play the drums.
I finally left Hillsboro at about 6:30 p.m. and headed home to Snohomish. All in all it was a great trip, but way too short. I will miss the bee store when we get it sold, but it does tie me down. I am really looking forward to having more time to spend with family.
Sunday, September 16, 2012
Chicken and Dumplings
I butchered our surplus rooster on Friday and cooked him in the crock pot Saturday. I was ready to make another try at chicken and dumplings. I used a recipe from a library book, The Best chicken Recipes. Once again, the recipe was somewhat of a starting point as I didn't follow it very closely. I like the way the chicken turns out cooked in the crock pot so I did that rather than following the more complex cooking procedure in the cookbook. Besides, I mainly wanted to focus on the dumplings themselves. I already knew I could make a pretty tasty chicken stew. The chicken was then cooked, deboned, and ready to become chicken and dumplings.
The main suggestion I got from my two chicken and dumplings experts (Mom and Aunt Dolores) after my last attempt was to not cook the dumplings in the crock pot. the slow cooking allows the dumplings to absorb too much liquid. They indicated that cooking the dumplings at a higher temperature for a shorter period of time would produce lighter dumplings. Dolores also suggested that I remove the chicken fat when it congealed on top of the broth after the cooked chicken had cooled. This particular chicken, an Americauna rooster, turned out to be pretty lean compared to previous home grown chickens. I didn't get a tablespoon of chicken fat after I let the cooked chicken cool. I cut the deboned chicken meat into bite-size pieces then added chopped carrots, onions, and green beans. The only seasoning I used was salt. pepper, and minced garlic. The recipe in the cookbook called for chopped celery which I couldn't find in our fridge. I substituted the green beans because we are currently getting lots of green beans from our vegetable garden.
I followed the dumpling recipe from the cookbook fairly closely. The recipe gave the option of using either butter or the reserved chicken fat in making the dumplings. Our rooster failed to provide even one tablespoon of fat, let alone three tablespoons, so I went with the butter option. I also cut the salt in half and used baking soda and buttermilk rather than baking powder and regular milk. Okay, so I guess I didn't follow the dumpling recipe very closely, but I did use two cups of flour, just not the all-purpose flour called for in the recipe. The dumpling recipe I used was as follows:
2 cups biscuit flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons butter
1 cup buttermilk
I used a pastry cutter to mix the butter into the dry ingredients, added the buttermilk, and mixed until smooth. Then I simply used a spoon to drop golfball size globs of dough onto the surface of the boiling chicken stew and let them cook covered for about ten minutes. Then I removed the cover and let the dumplings cook for another ten minutes. The cooking instructions came from Mom and Aunt Dolores. In lieu of my chicken and dumpling experts I had to use Linda as my chicken and dumplings guinea pig. Linda's childhood memories of chicken and dumplings were not pleasant so this was a little daunting. Imagine my joy when she pronounced them to be delicious. She even proved her sincerity by going back for seconds after I had gone upstairs. I tried them myself, and sure enough they were quite good. They were about as good as chicken and dumplings I remember from a little homestyle restaurant in Houston. I would still like to fix them sometime when Mom and Aunt Dolores are here. I would like to get their suggestions on the improved version. Also, Aunt Dolores had promised to send me her favorite chicken and dumplings recipe which I would like to try making. Other than that I think I am ready to declare victory in the quest for good chicken and dumplings.
The main suggestion I got from my two chicken and dumplings experts (Mom and Aunt Dolores) after my last attempt was to not cook the dumplings in the crock pot. the slow cooking allows the dumplings to absorb too much liquid. They indicated that cooking the dumplings at a higher temperature for a shorter period of time would produce lighter dumplings. Dolores also suggested that I remove the chicken fat when it congealed on top of the broth after the cooked chicken had cooled. This particular chicken, an Americauna rooster, turned out to be pretty lean compared to previous home grown chickens. I didn't get a tablespoon of chicken fat after I let the cooked chicken cool. I cut the deboned chicken meat into bite-size pieces then added chopped carrots, onions, and green beans. The only seasoning I used was salt. pepper, and minced garlic. The recipe in the cookbook called for chopped celery which I couldn't find in our fridge. I substituted the green beans because we are currently getting lots of green beans from our vegetable garden.
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| The chicken and dumplings rooster is the chicken on the right. |
I followed the dumpling recipe from the cookbook fairly closely. The recipe gave the option of using either butter or the reserved chicken fat in making the dumplings. Our rooster failed to provide even one tablespoon of fat, let alone three tablespoons, so I went with the butter option. I also cut the salt in half and used baking soda and buttermilk rather than baking powder and regular milk. Okay, so I guess I didn't follow the dumpling recipe very closely, but I did use two cups of flour, just not the all-purpose flour called for in the recipe. The dumpling recipe I used was as follows:
2 cups biscuit flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons butter
1 cup buttermilk
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| Chicken and Dumplings |
I used a pastry cutter to mix the butter into the dry ingredients, added the buttermilk, and mixed until smooth. Then I simply used a spoon to drop golfball size globs of dough onto the surface of the boiling chicken stew and let them cook covered for about ten minutes. Then I removed the cover and let the dumplings cook for another ten minutes. The cooking instructions came from Mom and Aunt Dolores. In lieu of my chicken and dumpling experts I had to use Linda as my chicken and dumplings guinea pig. Linda's childhood memories of chicken and dumplings were not pleasant so this was a little daunting. Imagine my joy when she pronounced them to be delicious. She even proved her sincerity by going back for seconds after I had gone upstairs. I tried them myself, and sure enough they were quite good. They were about as good as chicken and dumplings I remember from a little homestyle restaurant in Houston. I would still like to fix them sometime when Mom and Aunt Dolores are here. I would like to get their suggestions on the improved version. Also, Aunt Dolores had promised to send me her favorite chicken and dumplings recipe which I would like to try making. Other than that I think I am ready to declare victory in the quest for good chicken and dumplings.
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