Leroy The Rooster

   This past summer we ordered six buff orpingtons along with our meat birds. They also threw in one extra bird of their choice. As the birds grew up we noticed that one of the buffs started to look a little bit different. It started to grow taller than the rest and have different types of feathers. After about six months of growing we came to the conclusion that the hatchery had given us a buff orpington rooster by mistake, something that does happen from time to time. Also, our free chick turned out to be an araucana rooster as well. Knowing that two roosters in a hen house is not a good thing, I quickly found a new home for him. He's with some other araucana hens and is very happy.
   Leroy seems very happy with his flock too and watches out for everyone. He hasn't shown any aggression toward me, or the rest of the family, and is now just starting to practice crowing. We'll see how that goes... We're hoping that he will help in guarding the flock against any predators this summer.
   We chose the buff orpingtons because they are easy going, have the ability to hold up to Maine's winter weather, and are good egg layers. Now that we have a rooster their other characteristics are going to help us out as well. The orpingtons also tend to be broody, which means they will hatch their own eggs and take care of their young. They also are big enough birds to eat if we have to cull out the roosters.
   The new plan is to try and hatch only the buffs' eggs and eventually cull out all of the other chickens as they get too old. Miss E can't wait to start hatching chickens this year and have a bunch of new chicks to take care of.

Sausage Fest

   For Christmas, my mother-in-law got me a meat grinder/sausage maker for us to use as we get into more processing of our own meat. After doing a lot of research on them, I decided on the STX turbo Force 3000. I added it to my Amazon wish list, and low and be hold I ended up getting it for Christmas. I couldn't wait to get through the aftermath of Christmas and start using it.

   I was able to purchase some natural casings, hog intestinal, from the local butcher shop and they also were able to give me some advice on sausage making. We didn't want to waste any of our natural pork or chicken on our first time trying to make sausage, so I bought ten pounds of chicken thighs at the store. We wanted to try two different types of chicken sausage, so I divided the ten pounds of chicken into two piles, cut out the bone, and then cut the meat into one inch strips, leaving the skins on.
  I then put the strips on a pan, and put them into the freezer for about half an hour. They say the meat grinder will work better if the meat is almost solid. Once the chicken strips were firm but not frozen, it was time to start grinding. We started with the attachment that does the coarse meat first. It worked very well, didn't have to force the meat in at all.
   We piled the meat on a dish as it came out of the grinder and then put on the finer attachment and ran the meat through the grinder again, as the meat came out we put the meat into two different bowels. We then added the two different seasonings that we made a head of time. Using a spoon we mixed up the meat thoroughly making sure the spices were incorporated into the meat. They say that you should let the meat rest in the fridge overnight so the flavors get into the meat, but didn't want to wait that long, besides the flavors will be in the sausage once made and will have plenty of time to rest then. Before we used the meat in the sausage, we fried up little patties on the stove to try them out, and see if they tasted good. We then started getting ready to stuff the casings.
    I put the coarse attachment back on, but on the end of it I also put the stuffing tube on. I painstaking pulled about ten feet of casing over the tube and scrunched up against the base. Once on, tied a knot on the end and was ready to go. We later discovered that it was easier to have the meat fed all the way to the tip of the tube and then pull the casing on, the little bit of meat on the end made like a cone to help feed it on.
   Once we got the casing on, we scooped the clumps of meat on to the loading tray and used the pushing rod to feed the grinder, as the meat got fed through the machine it would fill up the sausage casings. As they got about six inches long we would twist the links and started another one. We did all the breakfast ones first  then went on to the tomatoes ones, that way the breakfast ones didn't taste garlicky. I turn out to be a pretty easy process and are looking forward to using our own meat to make the next batch.

Apple Breakfast Sausage:

5 Lbs Chicken Thighs
3/4 Cups Brown Sugar
2 Apples Deiced
1 1/2 Tbls Cinnamon
1/4 Tsp Nutmeg
1 Tbls Salt
 1/2 Cup Olive Oil
We made this with the sugar to help entice the kids to eat it for breakfast, you can omit it if you want but the kids ended loving it this way.

Sun Dried Tomato and Basil:

5 Lbs Chicken Thighs
1 Cup Sun Dried Tomatoes
1/2 Cup Basil Leaves
1/2 Head of Garlic
1 Tbls Rosemary
1 Tsp Thyme
1/2 Tsp Oregano
1 Tbls Salt
1 Tsp Pepper
1/2 Cup Olive Oil

We put the tomatoes and basil in the mini processor to cut them up before mixing them with the other spices.

Homemade Corn Nuts

    This past summer, we had a surplus of sweet corn that we couldn't eat in time before it got too much of a starchy taste, so we left them on the stalk to dry out. After the stalks dried up we picked the corn and hung it up in the basement to finish drying. We weren't sure what we were going to do with it at the time, but after eating a bag of corn nuts, we decided to try to make our own.

   What I did first was, shuck the corn off the cob and then put the corn into a bowl with enough water to cover the kernels. I left the corn in the fridge for three days or so. The water that is absorbed helps make the kernels almost pop and swell up. After the kernels absorbed some the water, I strained them through a colander and, then laid them out on a dish towel to air dry.
   While they were drying, I heated up the deep fryer to 375 degrees. If you don't have deep fryer, you need to get one they're great. Once dried I put them in the deep fryer for about seven minutes, once they started looking golden brown, I took them out and dried them on a paper towel. I then sprinkled them with some salt, and the whole family enjoyed eating them up.  

   The kinds you buy at the store are made out of a different type of corn, Hickory King Corn, but we wanted to try to use the corn we already had.

 




 

I know there is nothing healthy about taking a starchy, sugary food and deep frying it and then puting salt on it, but who can be healthy all the time?