Brining a Chicken Demo

There is a wide variety of brining techniques, but the fundamentals are very simple:

1 4-5lb whole chicken
1 gallon of water
10 oz Kosher salt
6 oz white sugar
2 oz cracked black pepper
1 large red onion, sliced
4 stalks of celery, chopped
2 large carrots, chopped
½ cup white wine or chicken broth
A clean, food-safe container large enough to completely submerge the chicken in the brine

Watch a demonstration video!

In a pan, bring about 1 quart of water to a boil. Add the salt and sugar and stir to dissolve (This is easier than trying to dissolve it into a gallon of cool water). Pour the liquid back into the remaining gallon of water. The water may be too warm to brine the chicken right away, so put it in the fridge until it cools (it needs to be around 40°F).

After it cools, stir in the pepper. Wash the chicken inside and out under cold running water. Place the chicken in the container and pour in the brine liquid in, making sure to fill the body cavity. Pour in enough brine liquid to completely cover the chicken. The brine is going to need 4 to 6 hours to season and soften the chicken. Cover it with plastic wrap and put in the fridge.

Remove the chicken from the brine and rinse it again under cold water. Pat the skin as dry as you can with paper towels and place in a pan or on a plate and put in the refrigerator, uncovered, for 12-18 hours. This will allow the skin to dry out and result in a crispy exterior when roasting.

Preheat an oven to 325°F. Prepare a bed of shredded vegetables in a roasting pan, including onions, carrots, celery, and any other herbs or vegetables you want to give flavor to the roasting chicken. These vegetables are not for eating, so select ones that will hold up to hours of cooking. Place the air-dried chicken atop the vegetables and place in the oven, uncovered, for 2 – 2 ½ hours, or until the meat is cooked through. If using a thermometer, take a reading from the thigh close to the body.

Once cooked, remove from the oven and allow to rest at least 20 minutes on the counter. Don’t worry, it will stay plenty hot. The resting allows the juices to settle in the meat. After 20 minutes, carve that chicken up and enjoy!

Lovely Red Globes

Right now I’m unable to keep a year-round supply of homegrown tomatoes (got to work on that greenhouse). But the first yeild out of the garden is coming in and they are big, red and delicious. So far no losses to blossom rot or bugs, and the way they are growing I should have at least 4 weeks of tomatoes. The flavor is unbeatable, right off the vine and onto the plate. For a while there will also be local ripe tomatoes available as well.

If I can restrain myself from eating them as soon as they come off the vine, I have a recipe I want to try:






Smoked Tomato Chutney
2# Tomatoes (I think cherry tomatoes would be best, but I guess plum or romas would be okay too. Nothing as juicy as a beefsteak)
1 tablespoon chili-infused grapeseed oil (another recipe down the line)
1 cup red onions, diced
1/2 cup red peppers, diced
1/4 cup fresh parsley, cilantro and oregano, minced and mixed
1/8 cup brown sugar
1/8 cup orange juice
1/8 cup cider vinegar
2 tablespoons lime juice
2 tablespoons fresh garlic, minced
2 tablespoon ground ancho chili powder
1 tablespoon roughly ground cumin (mortar and pestle if possible)
1 tablespoon ground black pepper
Salt to taste

Using a stovetop smoker, smoke tomatoes over low heat for 20-30 minutes (For my own smoker, I’m going to use a blend of applewood and hickory woods)

In a pot over medium high heat, add the chili oil and sautee the onions, red peppers, garlic and cumin powder until softened. Stir in sugar, orange juice, lime juice, vinegar, chili powder, and black pepper. Let the mixture simmer and reduce by half, until thick and bubbly. Remove from heat and let cool completely.

Remove the skins and seeds from the tomatoes once they have smoked and cooled. In a bowl combine the tomatoes, the liquid mixture, and the fresh herbs and stir to completely combine. Salt to taste, but it should be a balance of sweet, spicy, sour and smokey.

Serve alongside BBQ chicken, or polenta or braised lamb shanks or grilled steaks or roasted corn or whatever you damned well please…

Lilburn Farmer's Market Season Opener

I am kicking off a new season of entries with a visit to my own hometown market in Lilburn. It is set up on a vacant parking lot in the middle of downtown, which was very quaint forty years ago but just looks behind the times now in comparison to downtowns like Marietta or Roswell. But the market is in a new place now, and is the only one within 5 minutes of driving. Previously, although I had not been there, the market was on a stretch of street which allowed people to basically walk up and down, then leave. The new layout on the parking lot is basically a square of vendors within a square of vendors, giving people plenty of room to walk around. The only disadvantage is they moved out from under the trees onto a blacktop. It was 95 degrees this afternoon and it was pretty grueling after an hour. I kinda pity the vendors, even under their tents. I cannot imagine it in July.

There was a diversity of value-added products, from jelly and breads to soaps, teas, cakes, and pickles. There was a guy selling grass fed beef, someone brewing boiled peanuts, and three vendors selling shaved ice. There was a kid about 10 years old with a lemonade stand. There was not a lot of fresh produce, maybe six vendors. I talked broccoli with a woman who had harvested out the last of her farm’s broccoli. Her table was stacked with all things green; onions, kale, broccoli and lettuce. Next to her was a vendor selling tomatoes, watermelons, sweet potatoes and blueberries. She wondered outloud how a “local and organic” farm managed to get watermelons and sweet potatoes this time of the year. This is not the first time I’ve seen this kind of quietly vicious competativeness amongst farmers. Most of the other “local” vendors had tables stacked with zucchinis and squash, although all the yellow squash was very pale, except for the “questionable” vendor who had squash the color of lemons.

After stopping and talking with a few farmers and bakers and a woman who blends tea and a guy who blends spices, I ended up buying a smoked Tuscan herb blend packet of spice, a blend of organic tea called “Summer Sweet”, a pecan-butter bundt with tequila-sugar glaze, some local Snellville honey, and half a dozen South Georgia peaches that were absolutely delicious. Keep those California baseballs you find in the grocery store, whose only relation to real peaches is that they are fuzzy. These market peaches were sweet, rich with flavor, picked at ripeness, soft without being mushy, and running down your chin with juice. Wherever this guy goes with peaches, I will be there!

Squash Blossoms

Fat, orange, delicate squash blossoms herald the arrival of yellow squash! I also picked a squash bug off one of the leaves and scraed and destroyed the eggs she was depositing. My plants are still small compared to the ones on the farm, only the tomato plants seem to be thriving. They are full of tomatoes and are dragging over the tomato cages so that I have to keep setting them upright again.

The broccoli and lettuce is almost done and I will be pulling it soon, probably replacing it with kale and some other summer fruit. It might not be too soon to start thinking about fall squashs and gourds, too. The cucumber plants are getting stonger and soon I will need to trelliss them as well. I scraped back some dirt and saw some fat, if still small, carrots. Another few weeks and I hope to see the roots pushing up from the soil. The okra plants are budding too. The collards don’t seem to be getting any bigger, and something is nibbling a lattice of holes in the leaves. Because of the heat (I presume) the spinach never developed beyond a row of sprouts.

After this season I’m tearing down this garden and rebuilding it and I’m going to take a better look at the kind of soil, the pH, the composition, the balance… to see what is causing plants that I put in the ground in my yard to grow slowly and remain stunted compared to the farm garden plants, which are crowding each other out, trying to grow. The principle difference is that I used a blend of organic compost and topsoil in mine, while we turned the soil at the farm and added in a few hundred pounds of horse manure compost. We chose compost from a pile that was well broken down, probably been there for a year or so. They both get plenty of water, and equal amounts of sun. The farm garden ran wild with weeds, but weeds and grass have not been that much of a problem in my garden, and I think that is telling me something.

As to water, after Thursday’s rains my rainbarrel would have been full, except there was a leak around a metal handle on the outside of the barrel. I siliconed it and sealed the leak, but the barrel is only about 1/3 the way full now. I hooked up a hose with a soaker hose and ran it to the garden, but got no water. Seems gravity is working against me. The garden is uphill from the barrel. I thought the weight of the water in the barrel might compensate and push it up and through the hose, but at less than 1/2 full, that doesn’t seem to be the case. I will try it again when I have a full barrel. Failing that, I’m going to look into finding a small motor to drive the water up the hill.

Catch a Falling Raindrop

I ordered a rain barrel kit online, and converted our old 60 gallon garbage can into a receptacle. A funnel-type device diverts water from the gutter spout into the can, with a faucet attatchment near the bottom to attatch a hose to. I have to fiddle with the elevation a little more, putting the can up on some cinder blocks.

With this I was able to accomplish 3 things: I made use of the old garbage can that the company never came and picked up when the county switched services (they snooze, they lose!), I’m able to collect free rainwater for my garden, up to 55-60 gallons, and I’ve made our house just a little more green and environmentally friendly.

My only slight concern is whether the can will hold that much water without bursting. That's almost 500 pounds of water when it is full, and will probably get quite warm in the sun, being a black plastic container. I’m considering strapping it with some metal bands, but I’m going to wait to see what happens once it gets some water in it.

Now, we just need some rain. Naturally, there is non predicted for the entire coming week.

Of Goats and Collards

The last thing you see before a baby goat takes you down!

I visited the farm on Saturday and pulled a few more weeds, put down some seeds, and harvested some radishes. They are going great, practically pushing each other out of the ground. Everything is growing well there so I’m feeling that the 500 pounds of horse manure/compost we mixed in with the dirt was well worth the sweaty, stinky effort. The squash have doubled in size since one week ago, and long green blossom hulls are forming all over the vines. I put some tomato baskets around them to help direct them upward, vs. invading the other beds, but I don’t think the baskets are going to contain them. The collards are 18” tall and have a great collard taste. The sunflower sprouts have thickened and are climbing upward as well.

In my own garden things are progressing more slowly. Maybe it has to do with my garden not getting as many hours of direct sun everyday as the farm garden. Or it might be the mix of dirt and compost I used. Both gardens have plenty of earthworms in them, and neither appear to be beset by pests. Both get plenty of water. Of course the older crops in my garden are doing the best, the lettuce, the tomatoes, the broccoli, even the carrots are sprouting up healthy, bushy tops. Everything else feels like it has paused in the unseasonably cool weather, waiting for some hot days to grow. The nasturnums have bloomed, and I see bees, wasps, and butterflies around the flowers. The tomatoes have swollen on the vines and there are still many blooms. I know I should probably cut some of the fruit-clusters down to only one or two fruits, but I just can’t right now. I’m going to let them grow and see who develops and how fully.

After I visited the farm garden I wandered around the farm, checking out the bee-hives they had placed earlier in the week, and visiting the goats, mules and chickens. The baby goats have tripled in size and at least one is sporting horns. I took some photos of the mules and felt something tugging at my shorts. I looked down and saw a baby goat trying to eat the hem of my pants. When I walked away he gave me the butt routine… that is, he butted me in the butt. Everywhere I stopped he tried to eat my pants, and everytime I walked away he reared up on his hind legs and thrust his head at me. Too cute.

Ravishing Radishes

I’ve decided that if there is one vegetable to keep in my garden year-round and never buy from the store again, it is radishes. They are hugely prolific, sprout and mature in a matter of weeks, and probably grow as effectively in containers and terrariums as they do outdoors. With proper lighting and temp, I’m going to try and grow them indoors and out all year.

This handful came out of the farm garden, barely a month after we put seeds down. The first batch I pulled a couple of weeks ago was to thin the radishes because they were piled together and not forming properly. I still have 3X this amount left in the ground, now with more room to expand.

Radishes are known for being great in salads, but people overlook the greens, which can be eaten the same as their kale and cabbage cousins. Plus the greens are high in Vitamin C, as are the roots. The radish roots also have folic acid and other trace minerals. They have a sharp peppery taste and when they come from the store they are usually dry and a bit woody. Nothing like a radish fresh out of the ground. I was amazed at the sweet-pepper flavor and the moisture. They’ve been used for centuries as an herbal medicine, too.