Author: ebeth

We have had several new arrivals at the farm: A young calf that we are bottle feeding, baby poults (turkeys) for the holiday season, a year old steer taking to our pasture, and a newborn calf, Malegra’s latest son.

The pigs are growing, headed to the butcher next month. One has decided to lay near the feeder. Butter, the cow, is pregnant and due next month. She looks great with child!

Malegra’s calf was born last week without difficulty. He is doing well in the pasture with the other cows.

And one of the beauties of nature that we don’t domesticate, but do enjoy – the monarch butterfly!

Recently we had chicken and waffles. I made a chicken gravy, a thin gravy with shredded chicken. Here is how I made it.

Because of the quantity of chicken I wanted, I used a whole chicken for this recipe. I put a frozen chicken in an 8 qt. stockpot and covered it with water. I put it on the stove to boil. Once it came to a boil, I turned the heat to low and let it simmer for 3 hours. This was the resulting broth with a nice layer of chicken fat.

Since I had a day until I needed the chicken gravy, I refrigerated the whole pot. The chicken chilled and the fat congealed. Also the broth was semi-gelatinous, always a good thing! At this point when you reach for the chicken it falls apart.

So I pulled off the leg and thighs from both sides and all the breast meat. I pulled the bones out and the skin off.

Because I wanted the chicken to be finely shredded, I pushed all the meat flat with my (clean) fingers. You could do the same thing with a kitchen mallet.

Then I chopped the meat up across the grain and ended up with finely shredded meat. (A 4 pound chicken gave me about 4 cups of meat, a cup from each section.)

Meanwhile, I was making the gravy. Recipes seem to have equal parts liquid and chicken. So 2 cups of broth would need 2 cups of chicken. And that ratio seems to make a nice chicken gravy.

I started with some fat, either the chicken fat from the broth or some butter. I used arrowroot as my thickener and mixed that with the fat, heating it and letting it thicken. Then I added most of the broth. I kept some back, so that I could add more arrowroot if it wasn’t thick enough. I let this heat almost to boiling. (Equivalency: 1 part arrowroot=2 parts cornstarch=4 parts flour)(Thickeners mix well with fats. They tend to clump when added to hot liquids, but mix well with cold liquids. So I tend to mix 1 part of thickener with 2 parts of cold liquid, either broth or water. I stir this until it is smooth, then add the smooth mixture to my hot stove liquid.)

Finally, I added the chicken to the gravy and had chicken gravy. You can see the meat blended in. I let this warm to almost boiling and then served it over waffles. It is a thin gravy, but works well over waffles or toast. And it would be a little bland by itself, but would be ok over most starches, potatoes, rice or noodles.

You can add your normal spices, salt, pepper, onions and garlic. Onions and garlic I would saute at the beginning in the fat before I add the thickener. Spices, salt and pepper, I would add at the end.

This is a use-what-you-have sort of dish. I cook to a pot based on the number of people eating. I vary the veggies according to what I have and according to the dislikes of those I am serving. Some veggies retain their shape well when sauteed – broccoli, cauliflower, beets – and some shrink considerably – many greens – and some are somewhere in between – beans, pod peas, squash, cabbage, onions, garlic.

I use a cast iron Dutch oven. I put oil in the bottom and let it start to warm. I add my firm veggies and put some oil on top. Then I stir or toss the veggies and the oil. Next I cover it with the lid and let it sit for a minute or two. Then I add the next batch of veggies, again adding some oil on top, stirring and tossing. Once again I cover it and let it sit another minute or two. And finally I repeat with the greens. Once the lidded pot starts steaming, I put the heat to low, letting it sit for 4-5 minutes in between stirrings. When the solids are finally soft, then I serve this. It may be over rice or just a side of meat and potatoes. And the veggies still taste good the next day, though we don’t usually have many that last that long. Here is a printable form of this meal.

About 10 years ago one of my meat customers asked me for smoked pork chops. I had never heard of them, but sure enough my butcher could make smoked chops. So we started getting some of our pork chops smoked.

Smoked chops taste like smoked ham slices. The smoking and brine is the same. The consistency of the meat is more like regular chops. So you have a smaller piece of meat with a smoked flavor. If you don’t want to use all 3 at once, just thaw the meat enough to take one chop off and then refreeze the rest.

Our frozen pork chops, smoked and fresh (unsmoked), come 3 in a package. These fit on a skillet and pan fry nicely. I cook them over medium heat for about 4 minutes on a side, covering them with a lid.

Once that side is browned, I turn them for 4 minutes on the other side again covering them. Once that 4 minutes is done, I watch the fat and cook it maybe another minute or two on each side.

Finally, when they seem to be done, we turn off the heat and eat them. This would go well with steamed veggies and a lettuce salad.

Other ways to use these is to cook them over potatoes either in the crockpot or in the oven. The flavor from the meat goes down and flavors the potatoes and makes it all a good meal. In this crockpot recipe you could substitute it for the beef steak giving the dish a smoked ham flavor. All in all, smoked chops add good flavoring to dinner dishes.

Here is a more mature ragweed. It flowers on a long stem. And because the flower is green, it blends in better with other plants.

The flower reminds me of plantain, which also has a green flower. However, plantain is flat to the ground with the flower up above, maybe up 6 inches, where ragweed is more like a small bush and can come up 1 1/2 to 2 feet.

Other posts about ragweed can be found here and here.

Here are recent views from the farm…

Here are some weeds we recently sighted around the property. All are fun to observe, but two, ragweed and wild parsnip, we are especially careful around.

This is young RAGWEED. It has a small unobtrusive flower that causes a lot of allergy issues this time of year.

To see more mature RAGWEED, go here.

The blue flowers of CHICORY open in the sun and heat and close in the cool and rain. This is abundant throughout our fields this year.

MILKWEED is the plant of choice for monarch butterflies to lay eggs on. The larva then eat the leaves until it is large enough to form a chrysalis, from which the monarch will emerge. Note the milkweed pods forming near the bottom of the stalk.

WILD PARSNIP is here much of the summer. The sap can cause blisters and a skin reaction. It has a yellow flower that sort of resembles the dillweed flower.

MULLEIN is a large weed with velvety soft leaves. The spiky top gets lots of pretty yellow flowers.

Various veggies continue to grow. Lots of water, sun, and heat all work together to make them grow. Of course they are not the only things growing. Weeds or unintended plants also grow. With drier weather this week we hope to get into some of the beds and convert the unintended plants to mulch.