Chicken Stir Fry #ShadowshotSunday

Friday, I took a picture of a chicken stir fry I made, and I said to myself, why not use this shadowy picture for a Shadowshot Sunday?

Chicken Breast strips with California Blend frozen vegetables, served over spaghetti.

I was given this spur of the moment recipe by a family member after I found a boneless chicken breast in the freezer that needed to be used up.  If anyone is interested in the recipe, I can post it (perhaps) next Sunday.

Joining Lisa at Lisa's Garden Adventure for her #ShadowshotSunday.

Best of AM - Mail Order Chickens

This post, with some edits and additions, was first posted in August, 2010.

I never realized that Iowa is the #1 egg producer in the country. 

I lived briefly in Iowa in the 1970's and have been back several times since.  When people think of Iowa, they think of (not necessarily in this order):  Pork, soybeans, corn.  In fact, if you ask my son (who has been to Iowa several times) what he remembers of Iowa, he remembers  miles and miles of boring cornfields.  I don't think I saw many chicken houses there.

When I think of Iowa, I also think of local food, of heritage breeds, of farmers who still care.  Iowa does have at least one heritage breed poultry breeder, who we bought from several times when we lived in Arkansas:  the incomparable Murray McMurray Hatchery.

Iowa also has wonderful, friendly people and a wonderful place we have never been to-the headquarters of the Seed Savers Exchange in Decorah, Iowa and its Heritage Farm..

Exactly the opposite of the current egg scandal farm owners, the folks at Seed Savers work to keep genetic diversity in our seeds, and also seek to keep heritage breeds of certain animals alive.  Their work deserves to be well publicized. 


Too bad Iowa right now is in the news for something totally different-tainted eggs. Half a billion eggs recalled. Thanks to factory farming, shipped to 22 states. It would seem these farms have had many violations-the "same old same old".  I could go into a rant about food safety regulations, but this is not a political blog.  So instead I would like to share some memories of when Iowa farming goes right.

I have fond memories of visiting the Iowa City Farmers Market.  Iowa City is a college town so, as you could expect, they had their share of organic booths.  Of course, everything was locally grown and made.

Yes, in Iowa the small farmer still exists, marketing the most delicious pork and beef (sorry, vegetarian readers), plus all the usual veggies.  In a climate hotter than ours in the northeast, one even saw okra and some other southern favorites for sale.

But I promised to speak about mail order chicken memories. I want to share something about raising chickens and "growing" our own eggs, all from Iowa chickens.

Back in the 1980's, when we lived in rural Arkansas and kept chickens, we would spend the New Year perusing the Murray McMurray catalog, with its brightly colored pictures of what was even then called "rare" chickens.  These are the chickens with names, not numbers:  Barred Rocks, Rhode Island Reds, Black Australorps, Buff Orpingtons, New Hampshire...and on and one-about 130 breeds total.

We would make our selection and place our order (in the mail, of course).  No internet, no fascinating website giving pictures of their operations, no instant update of stock on hand.  Rather, we placed our order and waited for the day we specified.  We did it the "old fashioned" way which, in those days, was the only way.

On the appointed day, there would be a phone call from our local rural post office.  We had to come and get them; they would not deliver.  The box, cheeping away, was rushed home.  In a miracle that we could never get tired of, the living chicks survived the trip.  Just imagine opening a box and being greeted by 25 cheeping 2 day old chicks!  We would take each one out gently, dip its beak in water, and put each precious chick in a little pen under a warm light.  The waterer and feeder were made from mason jars screwed into special "lips".  We fed them commercial but unmedicated chick starter.  After a day or so, they would be ready for supplementation with the occasional June Bug attracted by the light.

This next part is not for the squeamish.  The chicks would get hold of the unfortunate bug and chase each other, trying to snatch what was left of the large bug (it didn't last very long) in a game of chick free-for-all.  The whole while, they would be screaming in delight.

Don't ever say baby chicks are cute.  Not unless you've seen one of those feedings.

You have to love chickens to know them. You have to accept their nature.  Chickens are omnivores, and they lust for blood.  If one of those chicks accidentally got cut, it would have suffered the same fate as that bug.

Then, those chicks would grow, and about 6 months later the female (pullets) would start to lay their small beginner eggs.  The males?  Well, that part isn't for the squeamish either.  (I'll leave the part out about how roosters treat the hens.)  Nothing like a wonderful, thick shelled, fresh egg.  Except if you want to hard boil, in which case you want a slightly aged egg.

We never worried about salmonella.  We ate raw (from scratch) cake batter.  We even made (gasp!) real eggnog!

We moved back to urban life in the mid 1980's, and our chicken life was over. 

But what about Iowa, land of Seed Savers and rare chicken flocks? (At least in 2010 Murray McMurray was still using local farmers to produce their eggs for hatching.)

Moral of story, more important than ever in our brave new world of GMO's:

Support your local farmer.  Know who produces your food.  Know HOW it is produced. Ask questions. Ask lots of questions.

That's one way to protect yourself.

Sustainable Saturday - Last of the Slow Cooked Chicken

Last Saturday, I blogged about our adventure with learning to use a slow cooker to cook for our elderly mother in law, who we are giving care to during her recovery from a radiation implant surgery. Our learning project was a free range chicken - probably a roasting hen.

On day one, we slow cooked the chicken and made chicken cacciatore.  

But then what?  We had a lot of leftovers, and decided to make shredded chicken burritos for Sunday dinner.  It would be good for my mother in law, who had an appetite, but didn't have her usual appetite last weekend.

The chicken had cooked to falling apart tender in the crock pot and shredded easily. My spouse, the family cook, combined the chicken with a sauteed red pepper (to give it a "roasted red pepper" taste), and some chicken broth to moisten the mixture.  Then he served the chicken in one bowl, shredded cheese in another, lettuce in still another bowl, and, finally, some homemade guacamole, for people to choose as they wanted.  We served pre made salsa (from a jar, sorry) on the side.

My brother in law, who has a developmental disability called autism, had never rolled a burrito. The burrito skins are circular wheat tortillas and there is a trick to rolling a burrito without it falling apart when you try to eat it.  He rolled it with my spouse's help, but really didn't like the idea of a burrito.  He requested seconds, but without the tortilla.

My mother in law, who is in her mid 80's, grew up in Yonkers, New York when parts of that city were still rural.  She remembers merchants who would travel the streets with live chickens.  Her mother would buy a live chicken and would have to do the slaughter and preparation for cooking herself.


It was a much slower time, during the Great Depression, when my mother in law grew up.  She has seen so much change in her 80 plus years, and has had to adjust to so much - everything from television to computers to cell phones. She's adopted many cooking conveniences and used them - the microwave, for example.  But, the slow cooker, I think, was so big that its insert was too heavy for her, and she couldn't clean it in her dishwasher.  It's nice for us to experiment with it, though.

This weekend, we will make one of my mother in law's favorite soups (I'm not sure if we will use the slow cooker, though).  Perhaps, next Saturday, I'll post that recipe. Maybe I'll even remember to take pictures.

What is your favorite way to slow cook chicken?

The Tough Old Hen

(If you are looking for Civil War Sunday, it will resume later this month.)

Yesterday, I blogged about our initial experiment with cooking a free range chicken for my mother in law, recovering from surgery to implant a radioactive device for her cancer treatment.

Here's the crock pot.  It's large, too large (and heavy) for her to use anymore.

And here's the chicken. It wasn't quite a tough old hen (we knew about those, years ago when we raised our own chickens) but we figured it would need some good, slow cooking.


My mother in law has an appetite (not everyone undergoing radiation treatment does), and it doesn't appear that acid food is bothering her (right now, anyway). Acid foods can be a problem for some.  So spouse decided to make chicken cacciatore.

Here's the recipe, kind of.

First, spouse chopped up four celery stalks into chunks, along with three small onions (home grown), and three cloves of garlic from a recent farmers market.  Then, he threw them into the slow cooker with the contents of a 28 oz can of crushed tomatoes that were flavored with basil.

Then came a pint of boiling water. Spouse added the chicken, sprinkled dried thyme into the mixture and started to cook on high heat.

After a couple of hours, he lowered the heat, added some fresh mushrooms, and cooked for about six hours total.  The dark meat was fall-off-the bones tender. Somehow, the breast (the part I like) was actually a bit dry.  But we both considered the meal a success.

Spouse served the chicken over a mix of egg noodles and whole wheat noodles, along with some steamer green beans.

Now, a blogging friend suggested we take the bones and make bone broth with them. We do this a lot with roast turkey bones. But, with this chicken, spouse felt the chicken was so well cooked that the bone goodness would have already melted into the cacciatore.

And my picture of all this cooked chicken is is where?....well, I didn't even think of taking a picture until we were almost done with dinner.  Too many things to think about - too many distractions.  As my iPhone is practically grafted onto me, I consider that a historic occasion!

(and now you know why I don't write a cooking blog.)

My mother in law has been doing quite well despite the ordeal of the past few days - highlights of which include her having to give herself injections.  Some might call her a "tough old hen": but if you think about it, as insulting as that might be, there are really a lot of expressions related to our culture's love affair with chickens (inspiration for another post, perhaps?)

No, I call her a remarkable woman. (and I am eternally happy I do not have to administer the injections.)

The care giving journey continues and I will be blogging on and off about it for the next week.