Among the reasons that we are using Quinoa a lot in our household is they taste so good AND they are much better than rice toward keeping my blood sugar in the normal range. This is probably because quinoa is not a true grain, but a seed, so you get all that protein, vitamins and minerals and not the diabetic unfriendly side effects of grains.

For many years, one of my favorite recipes is Kedgeree, a dish of East India origins that was brought back home by the British from their Indian colonization days.

The traditional vegetarian recipe used pinto beans and rice for their delicious taste. Rice hasn’t been working out for me, so I set out to modernize a bit. All I did was add lentils and quinoa instead- and the result is even better than the original formulation. In fact, it is “Bob APPROVED”. Hey, I do whatever I can to keep my garden volunteers happy!

BTW- I spend a little time at the beginning of the week to soak and cook grains & beans for the week. They keep well in the fridge and I can toss them into so many foods. Easy Peezy. For quinoa, I use the rice cooker.

Kedgeree Curry with Lentils & Quinoa (with optional toppings)

1 Tbsp lemon juice
1 Tbsp soy sauce
½ cup water

2 Tbsp Olive Oil
¼ cup Onion, Chopped
1 Tbsp Curry Powder (or your favorite curry)
2 cups pinto beans (or your favorite cooked beans)
3 cups combination of cooked quinoa and lentils (love trader joe black lentils in the bulk section)

First, add the lemon juice, soy sauce and water together in a small bowl.
Heat the oil in a large skillet and add the curry. Stir to mix.

Add the beans and stir, then the quinoa and lentils.
Pour the liquids on top and stir in well. Serve hot!

Toppings we love:

Diced tomatoes
Diced Hard Cooked Eggs
Sliced Green Onions
Sliced Olives

Sauteed Kale is delicious with this dish and rounds it out really well. I just fry in a little olive oil, garlic and slivered onions. Yum!

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As everyone is painfully aware, the cost of grains has gone up dramatically. I wish that we could grow all the grains that are needed to keep these birds healthy and laying, but right now that isn’t very practical. Still, we grow corn, some rye and tons of fresh vegetables for the girls to eat. No chemicals or GMO here!

Because the cost of feeding the birds has gone up, sadly we have to raise our price to $7.00/dozen. This seems like a lot, but what are we getting for the buck? Chickens that are raised on healthy natural food, living with tons of space per bird and the freedom to roam for all the bugs and grasses that make their days worth living. You can’t raise chickens like that if you are selling eggs for a living!

One lady I know that lives locally sells her eggs at the farmers market. This is how she makes a living. But to do that she has almost 1000 chickens housed together in one barn that is sectioned off. And she has to feed them the cheapest food she can find to make a profit. She is a nice lady  and I know that there is a need for her eggs, but last I checked she was up to $9.00/dozen. Ouch!

Anyway, I hope that you see the value in our product. We truly are thankful for your support and for sticking with us through all the ups and downs. We hope to be able to continue raising our chickens in the healthiest way possible- and get delicious eggs out there for our friends and neighbors! If you remember, ask me to cut you some fresh kale to go with your breakfast- I have some extra out there right now.

Breakfast Eggs

Last year was tough. I seemed to spend more time with doctors than with chickens. So- the plan is to not have any accidents and stay healthy. I am sure that the chicks will appreciate the effort!

Many of you have noticed that my girls are not currently laying- that is to say I get maybe 2 eggs, maybe 8 eggs a day out of all those chickens. I am used to getting more than enough eggs during the winter to pay for their feed habit.
What is going on here? Not to worry, the girls don’t have some horrible problem. They are just getting older.

As your chickens age, egg production drops off dramatically. The first year is amazing. You get eggs almost every day- and they are huge!
Then the chickens molt- they lose many of their feathers, moan a lot and stop laying eggs until they grow the new feathers back in.

Now for the second season: They still lay eggs, but maybe 3 or 4 a week. The eggs are also quite a bit smaller. They still eat just as much food though, so the cost of keeping the birds has not gone down at all!

Time for another molt going into the 3rd year. You guessed it- fewer eggs than last year. Maybe one or two eggs a week if you are lucky. Now this is not a problem if your chickens are also pets- they will keep laying eggs for a number of years- just very few compared to the first couple of years.

How do we deal with this on the farm? Our strategy is to keep new chickens “in the wings” so to speak. That means that we must always have new chicks coming up to replace the older layers. The downside is that it takes 5-6 months for a chick to start laying eggs- and she is only cost effective for the first two years (Now you know why home pastured eggs are so expensive- it costs a lot to get the birds to laying age and the laying window is way too short)

Last year being what it was, we did not get our replacement chicks going until late fall. So we have beautiful black sex link chickens out back who look like they should be laying eggs- but won’t until the weather warms up.

So, we are asking you to have patience with us. Once this batch gets going, we can start on another batch. And soon it will be warm enough to start the meat chickens once again. Boy do I miss fresh chicken!

I will post an update when we start getting eggs again! Yeah!

English: Roasted chicken Español: Pollo asado (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Do you love fresh farm raised chicken? (You know, the kind that actually run free outside and are fed only wholesome food)
(Not the ones in the store that say organic but are raised inside crammed in together with thousands of other chickens)

We know you do, so we have the latest batch in the fridge, waiting for you to pick them up. If you can’t get here in the next few days, don’t worry, we have them vacuum sealed for the freezer and they defrost as good as new!

Give us a call at 707-251-8991 to get yours!

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No luck on something sounding like a recipe my overly finicky tastebuds would like right about now. Yellow squash is, well, slimy if not handled correctly. Most of the recipes seemed like they just encouraged that in the final dish.

Unlike most normal people, I actually enjoy a nice soup when the weather is hot. Simple to prepare, light and not too heavy on the calories. An added plus is finding yet another way to get more vegetables into my diet. So I looked at some ideas from other peoples recipes and decided to use a trick I learned when I came up with my cream of asparagus soup- add potato for richness and to balance out the slippery mouth feel that pureed squash is known for.

I liked the idea of adding curry and ginger to give the soup an oriental twist. Sure enough, the recipe works for me. You may feel the need to adjust the amount of curry, even adding more chicken broth if you feel the need- go ahead, it’s your soup after all!

Curried Yellow Squash & Potato Soup

• 1 onion, minced
• 1 potato, diced
• 2 medium yellow squash, diced
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 Tbsp Fresh Ginger, minced
• 1 clove Garlic, minced
• ¼ tsp red pepper flakes
• 1 Tbsp Curry Paste or Powder (add more to taste)
• 4 cups chicken stock
• ½ tsp salt (or to taste)
• 1 Tbsp Fresh parsley, finely minced

1. Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan and sauté the onion, potato and the squash until golden brown, about 10 minutes over medium heat.
2. Add the ginger, garlic and red pepper flakes and continue cooking for a couple more minutes to allow the fragrance of the ginger and garlic to come out.
3. Add the curry and stir in well. Now add in the stock and salt to taste. You may want to add a little more curry depending on how it tastes to you.
   Allow the soup to cool and using a stick blender, puree (or just pour into a regular blender if that’s what you have)
4. Reheat and place the soup into 2 soup bowls and sprinkle with the fresh parsley.

Serve with fresh, crusty rolls or flour tortillas that have been grilled  over high heat until brown spots appear.

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I grew fava beans as a cover crop in my vegetable garden.

What I didn’t realize was the variety I selected (or maybe I just planted them at the wrong time) would not mature early enough to get my spring planting done, at least not in that garden area. I had never eaten fava beans before, but they sounded delicious so I was looking forward to a bumper crop. Me and the chickens that is.

Well, I was not sure at what stage to pick the little darlings, so I waited until the pods got real big. I kept sampling the younger beans and they tasted raw and sort of bitter so I assumed that they just weren’t ready yet. I asked my chef neighbor how to cook them and he told me to pick them very young, dip them into batter and use them like a tempura. Sounds good, but mine were way too big for that. Plow them under, he says.

Hmmmmm………well, I gave a lot of them away, fed a lot to the chickens but still had beans coming out my ears. By then I started seeing them for sale at the farmers market and they were just as big as mine were. Clearly I was missing something. I decided to go to the old standby- the internet.

Turns out preparing fava beans is a two step process. First you peel the outer shell (like a banana). Next you make a small cut at the top of the bean kernel and squeeze out the inner bean. Success! I am now officially addicted to fava beans. Who knew!

Here is a great tutorial for you folks who like a visual: How to peel fava beans

Now what? I decided to make a fava bean puree to go over some spaghetti. I tried a couple of different ways, but here is the final version:

Fava Bean Puree

1 onion, slivered
2 cups shelled fava beans
2 cups good homemade chicken broth
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
1 cup cream or half and half
1 pound cooked spaghetti or other pasta as desired
Strips of Pancetta if desired Parmesan Cheese as desired

Saute the onion in a large skillet until soft and then add the garlic and the red pepper flakes, stir them in well.
Add the chicken broth and the fava beans and cook until the fava beans are soft and tender- about 15 minutes.
Place the above mixture in a blender- you may need to add a little water or extra broth if it is too thick to work with.

Return to the skillet and add enough cream to make a slightly thick sauce. Add some parmesan cheese and pancetta if desired.
Toss with your pasta and enjoy!

Another link about preparing fava beans with recipes by NPR

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Barbecue chicken-02 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I have just a few fresh chickens left in case you need a last minute addition to your holiday menu. We saw a recipe for grilled Mexican style chicken (see link here) that sounds sooooo good that we chose to make it the star of the BBQ today!

I also have some potatoes that need digging up and some extra eggs, so my hubby will get some of his favorite potato salad. And Nascar is on so he should be one happy hubby!

Enjoy your weekend, and give me a call if you want a chicken (we will throw in the fresh herbs just for you)

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Check it out here

Some of you may know that my husband is a truck driver. He told me that last week he met this great guy on the road who has one of those big chicken farms in the midwest. He told David that the company sends him the chickens, sends him the feed- and all they do is manage the chickens for a few weeks until the company sends a truck to pick them up. So it really does make sense that these growers don’t know what is in that feed. Really scary stuff!

I hope that anyone reading this blog doesn’t think that I am being an alarmist here. I just think that this whole thing has gone too far. I have grandchildren to think about and I worry about their future health. We need to make sure that if things like this are added to our food supply that we are given that information so we can make an informed choice when buying and feeding these products to our families!

Thanks for listening America!

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Poultry and his nutrition (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Sometimes my girls need a little boost.
They may be molting, it may be hot outside, or just because I want to give them a little treat.

I read something about this mixture years ago in an old book on raising chickens and it sure has worked for me.
A little side benefit is that it is supposed to help deal with those nasty intestinal worms (Yuck- but they all have them if they are outside at all).

I don’t have an exact recipe, but here is my approximate formula:

4 cups regular chicken feed
1/2 cup fresh garlic
1 cup olive oil
1 cup apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup cayenne pepper (or hot sauce)
1/4 cup dark molasses

Mix all of the above with a little water if needed to make a moist mash. Feed the chickens in a bucket (I use those round rubber feed pails from tractor supply).

Don’t wait for the applause, they will be too busy eating!

Chickens (Photo credit: Allie's.Dad)

Greetings! I have the first batch of chicken ready to go. These are roasters and are best cooked by poaching in herb water, roasting in a sealed pan long and low, or our favorite- in a crock pot.

Don’t forget I am still having trouble with my speech, but I am sure we can communicate anyway!

These first chickens are packaged in halves (each chicken is split lengthwise) to make it easier to cook (and because they won’t fit into the bags whole)

This weekend we will have the smaller fryers. These are great marinated and prepared with your favorite recipes. Just don’t forget to cook them at a lower heat and for longer. Truly free chickens use those muscles don’t forget!

Update: April 13 We have fresh chicken again this weekend as well as frozen fryers. These fryers are air chilled and then vacuum packed for long term freshness!

Call me at 707 251-8991 to schedule a pickup, Thanks!

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