dinner

I added a new page to this space to act as a resource for others nearby who are looking for local food. There you will find our favourite farmers and shopkeepers.

And while I'm on the subject, we bought the most amazing chickens this fall (I mean dead ones -- you already know about the live ones, who are still living. Although every time I tell Eldest we're having chicken for dinner, his first response is often, "Not one of ours!"). They're huge -- some of them are nine pounds -- and the most delicious ever. I roast them whole and then we use the meat for lots of soup. I remain firmly convinced that homemade chicken soup really does fight colds.

Unfortunately, I'm not particularly good at roasting chickens just yet, and I often discover that despite the thermometer reading, they're underdone in the middle. If they were grocery store chickens I'd be very concerned, but because I know how they lived, I'm much less so. Of course we don't eat it undercooked, but it cooks up just fine simmering in broth for soup and I'm not afraid to get intimate with the carcass to strip it clean.

Anyways… the last one I roasted was so big, we ate the well-cooked outside bits for dinner Sunday, made broth overnight and made an enormous pot of soup on Monday -- enough to give me lunch the next day and to freeze half for another night's dinner, made another smaller bit of broth the next night, which is now frozen for something like pumpkin soup, and then my husband made the most amazing chicken curry on Tuesday, which went on to feed three of us for lunch the next day. Pastured chicken is not cheap but when it feeds you for four such nourishing dinners for four people, a few lunches and the basis for another cheap soup, it seems awfully economical. And delicious!

So have a look at my new local food page, which I hope to add to over the coming months and years.