chicks - 1 month

 

 

They are a month old now - and will need a bigger cage soon  Mark and Esme are deciding what to do for that.  They can't go out with the other chickens until another month or two, because our roosters are very big and all of the big chickens sleep in a pile up on top of the house six feet off the ground.  They are starting to look so much like 'little chickens' now though, roosting and sitting on the ground with their feathers all arranged.  We've heard a few whistles and a cluck - no crowing, but up until that they mostly made little tweety chirp peeping noises, so we've noticed the difference.  'Goose' is the dark gray one, 'Spot' is the white one, 'Stripe' is the golden colored one (who is hiding behind Spot), 'Duck' is in the bottom left, 'Prairie' is in the top left (those two are trying to be twins now, but Prairie' has a silver back) and 'Pheasant' is the one with the yellow cheeks and brown body looking directly at the camera. 

navy bean soup recipe (with measurements)

 Apparently 'eyeballing' and experimenting with ingredients isn't as common as it was when I was learning to cook - so I made this recipe again as an actual recipe with measurements.  I 'scientifically' tested it out- and it worked fine.  Bonus is I now have two quarts of soup to eat this week at work :)

 

 

 Navy Bean Soup (with measurements)

makes two quarts (or two pints and a quart, which is how I put it up for convenience) 

 Note : This recipe was created to make a specific point of how to use dried beans, to have that in my 'cooking arsenal' and know how long it would take to make it correctly.  My daughter had wondered how to cook the beans from dry state, and there are SO many versions out there I wanted something I had done myself to show her a good method.  I use a lot of lentils and split peas, but dried beans do take patience and time to prepare properly.  Navy beans are small and cook up well into soups like this.  Dried beans are a lot cheaper than canned beans, are very available in many places and keep very well.  They keep even better when stored in a cabinet in a tight container like a coffee can, to prevent cabinet fly getting into the plastic bags.  You could use canned beans for this, just figure out what quantity you like and of course, it would make it quicker as the canned beans would already be at the softened state, just heat it up with the vegetables in it until they are done and blend it. 

The Method / Recipe :

In a large pot rinse one cup of navy beans - fresher beans are best, pick out any discolored or bits of other things (stem, gravel whatever, depends on your brand, they're much better about that than they were when I was a kid, as well)

pour out rinse water, add 4 cups of clean water to pot with beans

add 1 tablespoon of distilled white vinegar

Do NOT add salt or oil

put on stove and bring to a rolling boil - let it boil like that stirring for a bit, the beans may rise to the top and become sort of wrinkled

turn off the heat, remove pot from heat, add a lid to the pot, let sit undrained for 1 HOUR

 

After one hour :

add about a tablespoon of olive oil

add rosemary and garlic powder, flake, minced whatever you like 

add some ham or bacon or kielbasa if you want (it helps a lot to add fat but you don't want to overwhelm or add too much saltiness)  I used one round of Canadian bacon that Mark had bought for pizza, cut up very fine

optional : black pepper, ground brown mustard seed and/or celery seed

 

Put pot back on heat and bring back to a boil, stir well.

bring down to a simmer, where it just barely bubbles or not even quite bubbling but close, keep at this heat for 1.5 hours or so, stirring occasionally

remove a bean or two onto a plate and try to mash it with the back of a spoon

if it mashes easily, it is time to continue - if not, stir well and keep at temperature for another half hour, test again - if you had added salt before, it will be very difficult to get this to work well, as the beans may have hardened, so no SALT other than what might have already been in the meat 

 if mashable : add several good handfuls of diced zucchini and another of sliced onion, carrots might work in this or bok choy tops and bottoms - I've done the latter with no real change in taste but have been wondering if I might put carrots in it or if that taste would be too different

I also add some Garlic Parmesan grill seasoning at this point, because it is VERY good, but I know it has salt in it, so I don't add it earlier.

bring pot back to a boil, then simmer for 20 minutes or so until the vegetables are well cooked - I have my veggies in the freezer, so this works well for them

take entire pot off of heat, put on a towel or trivet on a counter, and blend with a stick blender until smooth 

Either serve when cooled with bread and maybe some shredded cheese or : Pour up into two clean glass quart jars or two pints and a quart, leaving about an inch at the top of each jar - place tops on and put in refrigerator after they have cooled on the counter some, using within four to five days.  This will not keep out of the refrigerator, and it is best to use it as soon as you can, but I routinely get four or five days out of it before it is gone.

Another nice variation for serving : add several tablespoons of diced mild green chiles to the pot when rewarming, and then tear up flour tortilla into very small pieces, heat with the soup and it becomes almost a noodle.   

 

Madeleine cookies :

It seems I have to keep putting this recipe back up in multiple places because either I'm spelling it off, or the algorithm just really doesn't like to give it back to me when I ask.  It has went as far as to say that the website doesn't have a recipe for it - when in fact, it probably has about four different ones.  I make this sometimes once a week, but not too much more often than that - and know I've posted the recipe several times over the years although it always does fluctuate some.

What I'm using lately for the Madeleine recipe - also called magdalenas in Catalan

3 large chicken eggs, set out on counter to warm up and beat with 1 tsp of vanilla extract, 1/2 cup of white sugar plus 1 softened stick of butter plus 2 tbsp of dark brown sugar - beat together for a total of FIVE minutes - then mix in 1 cup (little more) of white flour (that has come out of the freezer a few minutes beforehand) and 1 tsp of baking powder and less than 1/2 tsp of salt - mix dry ingredients in portions into the wet mixture. 375 preheated oven, each well of the madeleine pan brushed with butter and coated with flour, fill wells up only half way, and remove from oven as soon as the outer bits of the cookie begins to brown in the pan and a finger pressed makes the cookie bounce back - turn out onto plate to prevent it from overcooking in the madeleine pan.  All that bit about pouring in melted butter at one point and/or chilling the dough before baking it -- I tried that time and again, and found it really didn't matter in the end product at least not to me.

 Madeleine cookies

3 large eggs

1 tsp of vanilla extract (mixed with the eggs) 

1/2 cup of white sugar

2 tbsp of dark brown sugar

1/2 cup (one stick) of pre-softened butter

1 to 1 and 1/4 cups of all purpose flour

1 tsp of baking powder

1/2 tsp little less of salt

375 degree oven, 10 minutes or less

this recipe should fill 2 madeleine pans, each well about 1/2 full or so 

 

 

 

chicken progression

 Enter the chicken time machine... where we start at four weeks old (today) and go backwards.  Keep your wings and feet inside the vehicle at all times...

 Same type of side-eye, one week later (now above, 3 weeks old below)

   

and a week and a half... 

 

 

about a week in
 

after we had them for four days...

fresh from the big box store (above)

 

we have no pictures of eggs... well, of these chicks as eggs. **ha** 

navy beans cooking method and soup

 Esme saw navy beans in the store the other day and asked me what made them so different - and I said honestly that I thought they cooked up a bit easier than some of the others.  Bought a bag to try - and yes, I can say that they do.  Not as easily as split peas or black eyed peas, but close.  Years ago I had bought something very similar to them, but a bit bigger from the Amish store but I haven't been back there in several years.  I've had a lot of trouble cooking my adzuki beans from scratch - and might have to try this same method on them next.

 The method : rinse and place in a glass jar with water that has been brought to boiling - seal jar, let sit for an hour.  Remove to a pan (do not drain water) and add another quantity of water - bring back to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and let cook for at least another hour - should have gotten to mashable state by then.

Did add some olive oil to the water when putting into the pan - did NOT add salt, as it says not to on several cookbook sites.  Did add a pinch of rosemary and cut up a piece of ham to boil with it. 

Now that it has boiled to mashable*, added zucchini and onion and a bit more spice, and will bring that up to heat and then make into soup with my stick blender. 

 *able to mash one on a plate under a spoon - not mashing the whole amount 

an unusual soup and freehanded peanut butter banana bread

 I saw a quite unusual, but interesting soup the other day - some version on 'alubia blanca' stew with white beans, cod, onions, garlic, almonds and boiled egg.  I'm not interested in making that right now, but it got me thinking.

 Mark boiled a dozen eggs yesterday for a project he was working on - and then put them in the fridge for us to use and/or feed to the dogs.

Today we went to grocery shop and upon returning, I wanted to use up a few odds and ends that are still in the fridge now that I have more time to cook today.  I had made quick banana bread yesterday to use up some of the other things - and it had turned out pretty well considering it was freehanded. 

 Last night's banana bread : 

350 degree oven, Mark already had it heated up and on from cooking pork roast

2 small bananas, overripe, mashed

2 eggs, cracked and beaten

1 to 2 large tablespoons of peanut butter 

1/3 of a stick of butter, softened 

(the peanut butter was because I didn't want to open another stick of butter) 

a 1/4 cup of white sugar

about 1 cup of flour, with some salt and baking powder sprinkled on top of it

mixed all that together quite well, baked it for what was about 30 to 35 minutes until the knife came out clean

It didn't rise a lot, but it did bake up clean and taste very good

I had another large slice of it this morning with morning coffee 

 

Today's unusual soup : 

thinly sliced onions fried in butter and then added a bit of cilantro right after the butter began to brown

in a separate blender : 1/3 of a can of black beans and 1/3 of a normal can of tomato sauce

1 large boiled egg, peeled, blended in with the beans and tomato sauce

a handful of almonds

a good dose of "seven spice" (which is basically five-spice plus a few things : cloves, cinnamon, brown mustard seed, fennel seed, coriander seed, black pepper, star anise)

added that well blended mixture to the onions and cilantro along with another cup or so of water and heated up to bubbling, served with a flour tortilla in a bowl

 

We also made the red lentil sauce/soup the other day again and it was very good.  Fresh summer squash and onions with red peppers and a bit of frozen zucchini, and finely ground carrots and frozen ginger put with the red lentils to cook, and then served over a bed of rice beside an egg each. 

 

 

 

some hot dishes

 I've been needing to clean out some of the frozen vegetables in the freezer, and use up some other things - I do this standard sort of 'this is what fried rice could become if you just did it without frying the rice' hotdish thing, and usually I just follow what I've got on hand.  Both of these worked out really well, worth writing down and doing it again.

The past two nights I've done this :

 

Kielbasa : 

 1 cup of water and 2 tbsp of olive oil

big splash of soy sauce, brown prepared mustard (a small bit), 1 tbsp of brown sugar, splash of balsamic vinegar, dash of pork ginger spice 

red pepper, onion, green pepper, bok choy (shredded tops and chopped bottoms) and small amount of zucchini

about 1/2 cup of cooked rice and potato mixture (leftover) 

frozen kielbasa chopped up into small bits

2 eggs 

I served that beside some chicken dumplings from the freezer case that we had decided to try the other day - but the above mixture was really standout above and beyond the store bought dumplings. 

 

Pork and Bacon : 

I cooked 1 cup of fresh rice in the rice cooker, and then set it aside to cool.

1 cup of water and 2 tbsp of olive oil

finely chopped pork chop, put in at this early stage and brought to sizzle 

yellow bell pepper, bit of red bell pepper, onion and a larger amount of zucchini 

1/2 to 3/4 cup of tomato sauce

1 to 2 tbsp of birria taco seasoning (guajilio and ancho chiles, claims to have 'adobo' seasoning in it and apple cider vinegar) that I picked up to try at the store the other day (Oh yes, getting more of this at a later date)

brought all the tomato and vegetable and pork combination to a high boil and the mixture began to become sauce-like, cracked and added two eggs 

very very finely cut up two slices of bacon, sprinkled in while the eggs were beginning to have the whites cooked

draw the yolks through the entire mixture after the white has cooked a bit, then let the whole mixture cook for another 30 seconds or so until the tomato sauce thickens with the egg

split the rice onto two plates and pour half the mixture over each plate

 

for my lunch the other day I had put part of a porkchop, carrots, ginger, zucchini, split peas and onion together and made a soup, which was then blended thoroughly and I've been eating at work with curry powder in it - one quart jar of that actually gets me three good bowls of soup, and helps to keep my sinuses from having issues as well

 I've been doing rice and black beans, rice and crowder peas, squash and black beans and so forth for other lunches, always with a good tablespoon of butter in it and curry powder and black pepper. (anti-inflammatory stuff, it works for me)

I'm thinking the rest of my butternut squash, some of the leftover tomato sauce and black beans for my own lunch tomorrow, with a little gouda cheese in it.