Month: December 2009

Cold Turkey (ok, chickens)

On By stefrobrtsIn chickens1 Comment

I almost got the whole flock of 12 in one shot, until the girl on the right decided to wander out of frame!

We have been having an ‘arctic blast’, with temps dropping into single digits, which is pretty unusual for us! I’m so glad we only have chickens to worry about. Every morning we go knock the ice out of their water bowl and refill it, and they come running for a drink. Poor chickens! You can see all the hunks of ice from the previous days littered around. I even took a frozen egg out of the coop the other day. The shell had cracked so I gave it to Barclay. He enjoyed eating it, when he broke it open it looked like an egg slushie! Still only getting one egg a day.

Hasn’t our new roo, Blue Bird the blue cochin, turned out to be a nice looking boy? And he is very respectful and keeps his distance, which will help keep him out of the stew pot! The other roo is just as well behaved. In the picture above he is on the other side of the bowl, on the right side of the picture. He is cochin/orpington – one of Penny’s babies from this summer. He has the round body and feathered feet.

Check out this fluffy butt

Doesn’t that look warm?! I love these hens with their big fluffy pantaloons!

Working at home

On By stefrobrtsIn barclay2 Comments

Nothing unusual about working at home, we do it every day! Our toy store has been bombarded with orders since Thanksgiving, thank goodness, because it’s been a rough summer with the bad economy. So I, as chief box-monkey, have been packing my little heart out. But today it was too cold outside, the heaters in the shop couldn’t even make a dent in warming up the packing area. It’s worse than yesterday, and yesterday I did my packing dressed in layers, including my heavy outdoor fleece, wool gloves, and a hat – and I was still cold! So today we brought the party inside. Luckily there’s room in the hobby room (formerly the fish room), so my assistant and I can do our work where it’s warm!

Ah, packing boxes – it’s not glamorous, but it’s a living…

In the kitchen, fresh bread and Chili!

On By stefrobrtsIn food3 Comments

I’ve been doing a bit of cooking this week. First off I tried the ‘five minute bread’ technique, which I’ve been hearing so much about. Read about it here if you’ve missed out. My results have been a little hit and miss.

The first loaf out of the batch was very nice, and the rest of the dough was stored away in the fridge. But when I went to make the second loaf, I discovered the dough had gotten very cold on the bottom shelf, maybe even frozen (sometimes stuff freezes on the bottom shelf). No amount of sitting out on the counter could get a rise out of it, and the resulting loaf was thick and doughy, no air holes at all. Yuk. The chickens enjoyed it though. I have a second batch in the fridge now, on the top shelf this time.

I also made a big pot of chili, using my favorite recipe from cooking light – All American Chili. It’s very good, it has sausage and beef in it, and red wine, and it’s not too spicy, which is perfect for us. In fact I cool it off with a dollop of sour cream, and of course some cheese sprinkled on top. Dave even finds it tolerable, even though it has beans and he hates beans!

Now when I say I made a big pot, I mean BIG. I used my camp oven, since it’s the only dutch oven I have. So what to do with all that chili in that huge cast iron pot which will stay hot for hours? I give it a dip in a sink full of ice water. I occasionally stir it until the chili is cool enough to go in the fridge. I also put ice on top (and the camp oven lid comes in handy with it’s lip to keep the ice on top).

The necessity of this is a matter of some debate, because as Dave points out his mom would leave a pot of food on the stove until it cooled down a couple hours later and then put it away, and no one ever got sick. I have to admit that’s how it was at my house too.  But I’ve seen Alton Brown’s food safety advice, and I want to make sure I get the food cooled off and put away as soon as possible. What do you do when you have a giant pot of hot food to deal with?