Sweet Little Chickies

These are poulet rouge meat chickens. We hope to have 80 chickens for sale in late October! This breed is also called "naked neck" or "turkey chickens" because they have featherless necks. I think they are both adorable and delicious. The meat from poulet rouge chickens is deeply flavoured and perfect for roasts and broths.

Summer Soup

I had a LOT of things I didn't know what to do with in our CSA box this week. Eggplant for one. I always ruin eggplant. Shallots. Basil.

I had some items in the fridge that needed using up too. 1 lb of thawed hamburger. 3 quarts of homemade chicken broth. Baby carrots. 5 small red potatoes. I didn't have enough of any one thing to make it one its own.

So I made soup.

Basically I fried 3 large shallots chopped up in butter, added chopped potatoes (about 5 small red ones), a chopped up leek- fried until carmelized. Then added the chicken stock (3 pints.) and everything else chopped into bite sizes. Simmer for a couple hours.

5 red potatoes, skin on.
10 baby carrots
2 celery sticks
1 leek
3 shallots
1 lemon (juiced)
3 pints chicken stock
3 pints water
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 bunch of fresh basil chopped fine
1 cup of tiny ziti pasta (add at the very end)
2 eggplants (add at the very end)

Beef I made into bite size meatballs and fried in a skillet. Once browned I added them and their juice to the soup.

The in goes the eggplant and pasta. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes more. Serve with asiago cheese on top and a good chewy and crusty bread. Serves 8.

It was all eaten before I even thought to take pictures!

Grimy Yucky Chairs, Poof Presto=Pretty!

When we moved to the farm house we had to leave the dining room table we picked out as newly marrieds behind and take with us hand me downs. When we first moved here we recovered them with scrap fabric and sprayed them with lanolin on the poor advice of a "friend".  

Never do that. It was a magnet for grime and yuckiness. It refused to yield the yuck to the steam vac or any amount of scrubbing. Kind of an analogy on that friendship. I digress. I am still bitter about that piss poor advice. Lanolin is for sheep, for wool sweaters, for diapers. NOT for dining room chair covers. Not ever.

So I spent about a year now trying to come up  with a better solution. Diaper cover fabric? PUL? Vinyl cloth? I needed waterproof, washable, pretty, and cheap.  I need something not slippery. I saw on Pinterest someone used seasonal plastic table cloths, but then I saw an actual chair someone had used that on and a year later it was worn, split, and needed to be redone.  

But this, this was inspired. Browsing Amazon.com fabric I saw- indoor/outdoor cloth bolts. I bought one. Tested it. Water just went right through it. Easy to scrub. But what to do about the cloth cushion under it? If water goes right through, the bulk of potty accidents, lemonade, milk, and yogurt goo will saturate the seat through and through?

So.....heavy gage outdoor window plastic covers the pad, indoor/outdoor fabric on top. We used the old seat cover as a template. Cut with pinking sheers.

Staple gun all around, pulling fabric tight over the funny shaped edges.  The staples we used were long and required hammering in as a final secure.

Re-screw to chair base. Jessica comes bi-weekly to help me with projects. She's the best!

Bye bye grime thrones, hello pretty chairs.

Random Favourite Photos from this Summer....