Did Someone Say Spring?

Well apparently yes they did.

Asparagus is shooting...

And the Mulberry is fruiting.

Well the plants think so and who am I to judge.  I think they are much better equipped to measure the soil temperature than I am.

What this really means is that the brassicas I have got in the ground that have not yet produced may not and it is very much time to get those spring vegetable seeds sown.

Home Grown Chicken - The Taste Test

Back on the 14th of this month we had a trial run at butchering our own chicken and I have been meaning to write about the finished product but life (read work) got in the way.
After finishing the butchering we chilled the chicken in the fridge for 48 hours to let the muscles relax.  I decided to roast the chicken whole but with minimum flavouring so we could really taste the flavour of the meat.  I roasted the chicken in an oven bag with salt, pepper and lemon myrtle flavoured olive oil.

The result was delicious!!!
I have to say that I had forgotten that chicken was supposed to taste like, well chicken.  Hubby commented that I should have used a non flavoured oil so we could get more chicken flavour but have he was still flawed by the flavour.
I can only describe it by saying, if you imagine the flavour of the thigh meat, of the best tasting free range organic chicken you ever had, then that is how the (normally tasteless) breast meat tasted.  It took me back to my childhood in the 80's when chicken was not consumed as frequently as it is today and the chicken we ate was definitely more flavoursome.

Now we are really looking forward to having some more of our own chickens in the freezer.  Over the next 2 weekends we will be dealing with the remaining 11 chickens so that should keep us going for a while.

Lime Spice Syrup Cake

This cake is soooo good.  Share it with friends over a coffee served with a good dollop of Greek yogurt (or double cream if you prefer) as desert with family or just on your own with a cup of tea and a good book.

Cake
185 gm Soft Butter
1Cup Castor Sugar
4 Eggs - Separated
2 Cups Flour
1 Tsp Cinnamon
1 Tsp Nutmeg
3 Tsp Ground Cardamom
1 Tsp Baking Powder
1 Tsp Bi Carb Soda
1 Cup of Butter Milk or 4 Tbls Plain yogurt topped up with milk to make 1 cup
Grated rind and juice of 3 Limes

Syrup
1/2 Cup Water
3/4 Cup Sugar
Juice of 3 Lime
3 Stripsof Lime Peel
1 Cinnamon Stick
6 Bruised Cardamom pods

Pre heat oven to 180 degrees C.
Grease a 23 cm Square cake tin and line the base.
Cream the butter sugar and lime rinds.  Add the yolks one at a time and mix well.  Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks.  Sift the dry ingredients and fold into the butter mix alternating with the buttermilk and lime juice.  Fold   1/3 of the egg whites into the mix then fold in the remaining 2/3.  Spoon into tin and bake for 55-60 minutes.
While the cake is cooking make the Syrup.
Put the water, sugar and juice into a pot and stir over a low heat until the sugar has dissolved.  Add the Rind and spice and bring to the boil.  Reduce to a simmer and simmer for 5 minutes.


Once cooked cool in the tin for 5 minutes before turning onto a wire rack over a tray to catch the syrup.
Spoon the syrup over the cake, trying to be as even as possible, and discard the peel and spices.  Catch the drips and pour over the cake.

Butchering Meat Chickens - A Trial Run

Before you read any further I will let you know there are no gruesome photos of headless chickens in this post.  If anyone wants to see step by step butchering pictures there are plenty on the net and since I am a novice I have no words of wisdom to impart just our experiences on the day.

Our Meat Chickens have now reached 7 weeks of age and this is the age that they would be butchered if they were in a commercial poultry farm.
We plan to keep ours slightly longer, probably an extra 2-3 weeks but will will see how things go.
Today was all about a trial run of the butchering process.  It was actually really good to have the trial run with just one chicken, so now we have a much better understanding of how long it takes, what we need to  have organised and any potential pitfalls.
The trial run was some what forced upon us as one of the chickens had an issue with one of it's legs that we could see was going to get worse.  We were aware that this was a potential issue with the commercial birds but unlike a large commercial operation we are not going to just leave that one bird to suffer because the rest are not ready.

This is the first time hubby has had any part in butchering chickens and for someone who grew up in the middle of Brisbane he has taken to it very well.  I grew up in the country and as a child took part in butchering our own chickens. This was back in the 80's and I was pretty young so other than seeing them run around without their heads (which of course we thought was hilarious) and plucking them there is not a lot I remember.

We set ourselves up outside on an out door table with:
The BBQ set up with a pot of scaling water and a thermometer,
A few layers of news paper taped to the table,
Instructions taped to the table,
A Stainless steel bowl, sharp knife, paper towels, latex gloves and a chopping board.

Set up ready to go

This preparation made the job a lot easier

I found these instructions on the net and used them as my guide.

My instructions taped to the table for easy reference

We looked at a few options for the actual killing.  We were going to use a killing cone but after attempting to modify a plastic road cone we discovered that the cone was too narrow to fit the chicken.  We ended up using an old pillow case with the corner cut out which allowed us to keep the wings contained and the axe on the chopping block method.


It was a good time of year to be doing this as there were no flies to worry about, the weather was cool and we had no interruptions.  These are all things that I believe are important here in Queensland and Hubby and I discussed the fact that it would not be a god idea to raise birds that would need to be butchered in the summer dues to these factors.
The instructions mentioned the need to be careful not to break the bile duct if you wanted to eat the liver as it would make it taste bitter.  Not being familiar with the anatomy of a chicken I did not even know which bit  the bile duct was, till I broke it.  Thankfully it broke after I had removed all of the intestines outside of the bird, not that we were going to eat the liver anyway.

The bright green bile

It all went well and for this time we skinned the chicken.  We will not skin all of the chickens in the future but we decided this one we would.  It weighed 1.3kg after we had cleaned it all up. Now it needs to chill in the fridge for 48 hours before we eat it so that the muscles have time to relax, or so I am told.

The finished product

I am interested in hearing about any one elses experiences so please feel free to leave a link in the comments section if you have written about it or know of any good sources of information on the topic.

Food Overload

Our fridge is crying out for help.
We have a had different groups of friends visiting recently for meals and they all wanted to leave bits and pieces behind.  So on top of everything else that we already had our fridge is overflowing.
There is only the two of us, so for this week (and perhaps next week too) there will be no grocery shopping at all.
This will certainly help me with my Plastic Free July and with the bank balance, not that we spend that much on food.

So what's on the menu this week:
Beef Spare Ribs, Cauliflower Bake, Baked Potato's and Coleslaw (all leftovers)
Beef Spare Ribs, Baked Potato's with Sour Cream, Spring Onions and Tomato Salsa (all leftovers)
Fritata to use up the last of the Baked Potato's and Spring Onions with Silverbeet from the Garden
Baked Chicken with Cherry Tomato's (leftovers) and Couscous Salad
Roast Beetroot and Feta Salad
Chicken Stirfry with Veg from fridge and garden
Lamb Korma, Naan, Rice, Raita, Tomato and Spinach Stew and Aloo Mattar (we will have this for a few nights this week in different combinations)
I am sure there will be a few other meals that get thrown together from other bits and pieces and I hope to have a lot less in the fridge this time next week.