creative feeding update 1

it's been a little over two weeks since i originally wrote about making do with the food we have available. since then, we've gone to the grocery store once and i bought 1# butter, 3 pints of cream and greg loaded up the cart with some whiskey and rum for medicinal purposes. (we each have our own ideas on how to treat colds). other than that, it's been food in our pantry and garden.

i've butchered 3 times for a total of 12 chickens/roosters. we are now out of broilers and i'm working on the layers although there are quite a few roos to cull as well still. the layers are tiny compared to the broilers. 2-3 layers equal one of them. sunday after butchering 5, i threw 4 hens into the stock pot (the 5th was the final broiler, he went in the freezer for later this week) and stewed them down. i deboned them yesterday and today i'll can the broth for this winter's use.

we've had chicken pot pie, chicken stir fry (with onions, peppers, kale and carrots), chicken and turnips, chicken caccitori, garlic chicken and chicken salad. for all the chicken we've had (i've repeated some of these a few times), no one seems to be sick of chicken yet.

sweet potatoes are about ready to be harvested so that will give us some more variety. i've gotten broccoli from the farmer's market by swapping goat's milk. we have lots of potatoes and butternuts and sunchokes will be ready to dig soon too. we are almost out of red meat, i think we are down to 2 chuck roasts and 3# ground beef. i'm hoping we can get a deer this fall. a friend of ours like to hunt and in exchange for letting him use our land, we get one. i hope that happens soon as i am an avid red meat eater!