Welcome Home Chicks!

Well after a year and a half of healing from our chicken tragedy, we are ready to have chicks again. Unfortunately some neighbor dogs got into our chicken fence and massacred 18 chickens. To add insult to injury it was my partner's birthday. Not a nice thing to wake up to. So getting back to a place where we can have chickens again has taken a lot of me convincing my partner and an electric fence. 

So we got electricity down to the chicken house and so we have gotten chicks! We keep them in the garage while they are little and need more constant attention. Beside my son loves to hold them, gently of course and that's great for the chicks too. We want gentle chickens that are happy to have us hang out with them in their yard.

I have had chickens all my life. My dad loved to have chickens. We lived out in the woods with dogs so the racoons left our chickens alone. The only challenge we had growing up was the chickens always escaped. So we were constantly chasing them back into the yard.

So this is how we do it! We use a dog kennel to contain them. The kennel has big holes so when they are little I put cardboard walls up so that they don't squeeze through the holes. And also so the cats don't get them. We have hunter kitties so we have to watch closely until they are big enough to defend themselves. 

They need a water container, and baby chick feed.  Bedding is important to help maintain a warm temperature, we used pine shavings. A not breezy place is good too. It's not unusual for people to keep chicks in the house for a week or two if it's cold in your climate.

It was exceptionally cold today so I put them in a card board box inside the kennel to keep them a little warmer. Chicks need a heat lamp to stay warm. We bought chicks from our local feed store.  They had a min of six so we bought six. We may get a few more. We purchased Americana, Rhode Island Red and Orp Buffington. 

The Americana will produce green and blue tinted eggs. These chicks will not produce eggs for four to five months. So we will need to be patient and raise them through most of the summer before we get fresh eggs everyday!

We will feed our chickens organic egg layer once they are older. They will also get all of our kitchen scraps and since I cook for 7-12 people each night for dinner we have lots of scraps. Also we encourage our neighbors to share their scraps with our chicken too and we share their eggs with them. They love all kinds of left overs including meat. yes, chickens are meat eaters. Usually their meat comes into form of worms, and other insects. They love left over ham. Our chicken do not get a lot of meat scraps but the ones they do they love!

Have you ever had chickens? What was your experience?

 

Bone Broth

 Making more bone broth today. It seems to be the best soup ever. I can't seem to stop raving about it. I do have to say through this cold and flu season, no one in my family has been sick(knock on wood.) I owe some of that to the bone broth I am sure!
See this previous post for more info: http://naturalpaleomama.blogspot.com/2012/02/homemade-chicken-broth.html
See some previously posted pictures below..

Paleo Chicken stuffed with Apple and Onion Greens

So As I prepared our dinner tonight I was also putting away onions that I had bought at the farmer's market. And I thought "what will I do with all these beautiful green onion tops? Then it came to me! Stuff the chicken with them! So I thought I would also put an apple that had seen better days in them as well. Just to add little extra juiciness.

Now anyone who has read this blog before would know that I feed anywhere from 5-10 people for dinner each night. And we generally eat only left overs for lunch so I almost always roast two organic chickens.

I roasted the fresh chickens on 350 degrees for about three hours. I had about 10 lbs of chicken in the oven so if you have one 5lbs chicken you could roast it for one and a half hours. I removed the fresh (not frozen) chicken from their bag and washed them with cold water. Then I put a half of an apple in each and stuffed them as full as I could with the onion tops, just the green parts. Then I covered them with foil making a tight seal to keep the steam in as much as possible. Then at about two hours I removed the foil cover and basted them in their own juices. I do not use a devise to raise my chicken up from the pan so that the juices drip away from the chicken. I want them to marinate in their own juices. I ususally end up with about an inch or two of drippings. I use that to begin my homemade chicken bone broth. I make broth with every chicken I make. Why waste such a healthy amazing resource! Especially if your chcken is organic.Let me know how this recipe works for you! Please leave a comment below.

Roasted Fresh Herb Organic Chicken

What's for Dinner? Roasted Fresh Herb Organic Chicken

This is my favorite dinner to make because it feels like a twofer. We get to eat yummy homemade roasted chicken and after all the meat is off the bones then I make a healing natural chicken bone broth in my crockpot. Yum.
I started with two whole organic fyers that equaled about 7lbs total. I washed the birds in cold water and took out the organ meats. I always feel bad throwing thes away but we just don't eat them. I guess I could put them in the stock later. Maybe next time.

But before that I went to the garden and grabbed a giant handful of thyme, rosemary and chives. I figured I really couldn't put too much in my birds. Well I stuffed them full and decided to save the last bit for garnish after they were cooked.

I seasoned the birds with salt and pepper. Very simple. Nothing fancy~ well except fresh herbs from the garden!
I put them in a roasting pan with nothing under them. I didn't mind them marinating in their own juices. I know that good fats are really healthy for us. I know that low fat is a lie. I want those healthy fats in my foods.
I roasted them on 350 degrees for about 2.5 hrs.  And then I let them stand for about 20 minutes before I served them . oh I also restuffed them with a fresh round of herbs. I took my tonges and pulled out the spent herbs and refilled them with fresh plants. As you can see fresh plants look much more pretty.













This dinner plus mashed potatoes from my non-Paleo family and sweet potatoes for us Paleo eaters, broccoli and a huge fresh salad was tonight dinner!
Then the final step was putting the bones skin and whatever was left plus about a gallon of water in the crockpot for a two day slow cook. Then I stain the it and freeze for the next time I need chicken stock!

What's for dinner?

Soup and Salad of course!
Well, we have been fighting a bit of a cold in this household. So I decided to make Chicken soup with bone broth. And a good friend brought me some wild rice so I thought I'd throw some of that in there too! So as you'll see there are two pots on the stove. I started our with onions, celery, and carrots sauteed in some coconut oil. Then I added chicken breast and cooked that up.

At that point I separated the it into to pans. One for paleo and the other for the rest of the troops. Both pots got the homemade chicken bone broth that was in the freezer.  Oh That is going to be so healing for everyone tonight! I will add a little sea salt and maybe some pepper.

I feed anywhere from 5-12 people each night for dinner. The neighbors come over almost every night. Friends know our door is open and I love to feed people so our table fills up fast. Tonight we are feeding eight. two folks are paleo and the rest eat whatever I put in front of them. so two dinners but it's easy to do. The non paleo dinner gets 1 1/2 cups of wild rice. I like my rice to get puffy and full so I'll cook it extra long- about 45 minutes to one hour. I just throw it into the pot. With the rice more puffy and full it feeds more people too. Even my six year old will enjoy this soup.
And an organic green salad with purple cabbage and carrots. I need color in the meal. It needs to look pretty too right?

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Pesto Chicken on Spaghetti Squash Recipe

I love this dish. It was so good. Pesto Spaghetti is one of my son's favorites. I can be assured if I ask him what he wants for dinner it will  always be Pesto Chicken Pasta! He would prefer Spaghetti with red sauce but he gets a skin reaction from tomatoes so we stick to the pesto options. I understand Pesto has a tiny amount of cheese and a true Paleo plan does not include cheese but this is where I digress. Pesto is good enough Paleo for me! Look at that healthy dinner and tell its not excellently healthy!
Pesto Chicken Spaghetti
2 lbs Chicken cut into 1-2 inch pieces
1/2 cup Store bought Pesto (check for short ingredient list- Basil, Olive Oil, Pine Nuts, Parmesan- no preservatives)
1 large Spaghetti Squash for Paleo Eaters
Spaghetti Pasta for Non Paleos
  Saute chicken in a little bit of coconut oil until cook through. Pre-heat oven to 375. Cut Spaghetti squash in half. Put a couple of tablespoons of butter in a half of squash. Wrap the top of the squash with foil and put in a 9x11 baking pan and cook for about 45min to One hour. Check for soft but not mushy squash. Use a fork to score the strands of squash from the shell. Follow the grain for long pieces of squash strings. Cook pasta according to directions. Once both "spaghetti's" are cooked then add the pesto to the chicken. Create two dishes- one with wheat pasta and the other with Spaghetti squash. Dollop the chicken pesto on top and serve.