Chicken #1

I never cook entire chickens! Ever. Turkey at Thanksgiving is about as close as I've come to the whole roast thing. Now I have 15 frozen chickens that I'm not about to chop up, as do our friends the Lillies and Reids. So, in the vein of other cooking blogs, I'm going to chronicle my recipes with these 15 birds...



ROASTED CHICKEN WITH OLIVES, LEMON & GARLIC
from Crescent City Cooking with my words/edits

1 chicken
2 lemons, zested and quartered
12-15 garlic cloves, crushed
3 TB olive oil
Salt and Pepper
6-8 sprigs rosemary (strip half the sprigs of their leaves and chop coarsely)
1 medium onion, peeled and cut in 8 wedges
1 cup pitted kalamata olives

Preheat oven to 450F.
Shove half of the garlic under the skin all around.
Rub with 2 TB of oil and sprinkle with rosemary, S&P.
Place 3 garlic cloves, 2 lemon wedges, and a sprig of rosemary inside cavity
Put breast side up in 9x13 pan and cook 30 minutes.
Lower heat to 400F. Turn chicken over.
Add 1 TB oil and lemon quarters and zest, onions, garlic, olives, and rosemary and cook 15 minutes.
Turn chicken over again and cook 15 more minutes.

Review:

Very good. Needed more salt and olive oil. Served with baked potatoes which also needed some pizazz. Not as hard to carve and serve than I expected. Note to self: my olive-loving son does not like cooked olives.

Now I can tell you about the chickens

If you've been following my blog, you know that I got "into" chickens in Seattle. Three, cute, little chickens that eventually gave us white, brown, and green eggs and opened our eyes to all sorts of things! Don't get me wrong, I was happy to leave them behind, for reasons you can read about. But I didn't leave behind my commitment to free range, organic chicken and beef. I have the one, and our Wyoming friends offered to provide the other.

You guessed it! This was a hands on project.



So, first you have to slaughter. I thought it sobering to see Jason hold each one, as if giving it a blessing before it's death. And he kept reminding us all how quickly they die and how good it is to partake in the process of the food on our table.



Then you dip into scalding water and pluck their feathers. This process, while gross, was much faster than I imagined.



After gutting, they sit in a cold water bath before the freezer. I think close to 40 chickens were "harvested" this day!







Needless to say, raising broiler hens, and the end result, is a whole different "thing" than my 3 little girls in their make-shift dog-house home in our little backyard in Seattle!

First, I need to tell you about the antelope

Our dear friends have always stretched us.

Kristen we came to know and love in Turkey, through many years of urban living and organizational leading. Then one day this crazy guy pursued her heart out via eharmony... flew to Turkey and everything! Then he captured her hand in marriage and everything began to change. The wedding party included 2 Brits, 1 living in China, and 2 more from Turkey... taking photos on an enormous John Deere Tractor in the middle of Nebraska! And then he took her to Wyoming, bought her a truck, and sent a Xmas card with cowboy hats.

Now that we live an hour away, we are getting to see the inside story on Istanbul-chic turn prairie tough.



And we are learning about a whole NEW culture!

Hunting. For antelope. From your backyard.







And our kids are getting an education... on where food comes from, the hard truth to being a carnivore, and humane ways of doing so.





Aw, guys, we love you!

Experiencing Seattle

We have always been curious about the Pho restaurants ALL OVER this city! What is the craze? What is Vietnamese food? And how do you eat your meal out of a bowl of broth? My sister in law came to visit over spring break and gave us an excuse to do many "firsts" in Seattle! Pho=yum! And I LOVE that our kids are willing if not eager to try new foods/restaurants and end up loving things like this! (Yes, Chris does look more dubious!)