Ask a chef

[chickadoodles]

Today's a good day to smile.

Congrats A on your little one.

 

[Akrnaf2]

I just saw this clip, a wonderful way to make a fabulous Christmas dinner!
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[perchie.girl]

I just saw this clip, a wonderful way to make a fabulous Christmas dinner!

Love it... Not used to seeing legs done like that ... with that extra joint... They are done here in the US quite often but I have never tasted one. That would be a HUGE meal for sure Probably could feed thirty people.

I saw it without sound.... Did he mention what he did with the carcass? I am sure he made soup or something like that.

deb

 

[Akrnaf2]

I just saw this clip, a wonderful way to make a fabulous Christmas dinner!

Love it... Not used to seeing legs done like that ... with that extra joint... They are done here in the US quite often but I have never tasted one. That would be a HUGE meal for sure Probably could feed thirty people. I saw it without sound.... Did he mention what he did with the carcass? I am sure he made soup or something like that. deb

No that I remember, but ofcorse all bone are a wonderful base for stock.

 

[perchie.girl]

Quote: No that I remember, but of course all bone are a wonderful base for stock.
Excellent for bone broth too. I would love to do one one day if I had an army to feed.... I like the idea of the duck in the middle of those layers to allow for a moist finish....
deb

 

[Akrnaf2]

 

 

I just saw this clip, a wonderful way to make a fabulous Christmas dinner!

Love it...   Not used to seeing legs done like that ... with that extra joint...   They are done here in the US quite often but I have never tasted one.   That would be a HUGE meal for sure  Probably could feed thirty people.


I saw it without sound....  Did he mention what he did with the carcass?  I am sure he made soup or something like that.


deb

No that I remember, but of course all bone are a wonderful base for stock.

Excellent for bone broth too.  I would love to do one one day if I had an army to feed....   I like the idea of the duck in the middle of those layers to allow for a moist finish....
deb

I will certainly do it! I just need the right reason!

 

[Akrnaf2]

Deb see this one! I can't eat it, but you eill enjoy it! This guy really love to stuff things!

[VIDEO]

[/VIDEO]

 

[perchie.girl]

Deb see this one! I can't eat it, but you eill enjoy it! This guy really love to stuff things!

you could do it with any meat lamb beef it doesnt have to be pork. just adjust the seasonings accordingly.

Though Rosemary goes with all of it...

 

[CanuckBock]

Tara, I cant grow vegetables, don't have land, but fruit I do!

Love your trees...magnificent.

I think see limes and what I think are star fruit (never eaten the fruit of the Carambola tree...are they sweet or?)...are there peaches or pomegranates (oh my, a fav friut of mine and to only imagine what a fresh picked off the tree one must taste like!--no wonder Persephone got in trouble with Hades for eating just four seeds!) and maybe you also have olive trees (Olea europea)? Learned today that like tomatoes, olives are fruit like plums or cherries...course you would know THAT easily!

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The one fruit we were expectantly waiting on...was the crabapples...the girl dogs loved them last year, but this year, so wet not many of the flowers produced any crabs. Sigh.

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This is Oct first LAST year...was a good year for crabapples, hung off the trees like Christmas ornaments! Dogs harvested them at will!

Have harvested my potatoes twice now...

June 4, 2016 Potato plantings began​

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One could almost just plant potatoes for the magnificent flower displays...ah but them potatoes...especially when you try out new varieties...the colours are mind boggling.

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Pretty potato flowers...

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First potato plant I harvested on Aug 23, was the Alta Blush...

Aug 23 2016

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Yah, one tater plant and the bounty.

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I did save four as seed potatoes for next season.

Alta Blush is a red brown skinned, white fleshed early type tater...and to do her honours, we rotissiered a chicken and roasted them taters...new taters...man alive they were some plum good!

August 23, 2016 - to celebrate the harvesting of the first potatoes!​

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Later on Aug 29th, decided with the pea sized hail we got a while back would show which particular plants got a tad more damage than others...

Aug 14 2016 at like noon...still some on the ground next day of hail...​

So that dictated I could steal (and I mean steal a plant that could have kept producing!) some potatos.

So the second harvest, I took five types (one plant each) of the potatoes we have grown this year.

Experimental year on some potato varieties ​

Tis a test year this one to see what does well in the new tater plot area. Noted lots of worms, earthworms...so soil is pretty fertile and at least it makes the potatoes and the worms happy!

Aug 29 2016 - Alta Blush top left Linzar Deleketess top Caribe bottom right Viking bottom left and Ama Rose middle​

Harvested Ama Rosa (red fingerling), Caribe (purple skin with white flesh), Alta Blush (reddish brown skin and white flesh), Linzar Deleketess (yellow fingerling), and Viking (red skin, white flesh). In the stores right now, a small bag is valued at like five bucks...and not near as fresh (and tasty) as these ones grown here are.

Aug 29 2016 - Second potato harvest; Alta Blush top, Caribe right top, Linzar Deleketess bottom right, Ama Rose bottom left, and Viking on left side​

Did not harvest any of the Russian Blue or Yukon Gold or Nicola or French Fingerling, or Russet potatoes. The blue potatoes are a late variety and yes, am excited to harvest and add them to my eye candy roster...had them before, quite a neat potato.

Supper was exquisite...pork ribs done slow in the crock pot all day and then toasted up in the oven with more BQ sauce. Veg mix from the beef roast the Sunday prior was warmed up too AND I did make up a special potato soup to celebrate all the colours and shapes of potatoes harvested. Had a whole chicken on boil all day too...for soup stock and meat.

Aug 28, 2016 - Pork Ribs and veg along with Potato soup and a slice of sour dough bread ​

Soup was a fun thing to do up...put alot of veg in!

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Parboiled the chopped carrot, turnip and corn nibblets. If I was short on soup stock base, you could have drained that water in the soup but I had plenty from the whole chicken boiled all day.

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Sautèed the onions, mushrooms, green pepper, and celery. Boiled the potatoes until tender.

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Only mistake I made...gonna hafta cut the taters into smaller chunks next time I make this potato soup...past that, pretty much aced it.

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Soup was pretty much cooked when I combined everything...added the green onions, snow peas, diced chicken and the minced up herbs in last. They did not need any real cooking time...they needed heating up and blending into the soup. I chose a firm chicken to make the soup broth and meat from. Otherwise it would have disintegrated into slivers...I wanted chunks of chicken for the soup.

Thyme, two kinds of Parsley, three kinds of sage, rosemary and oregano...yeh...​

Yes, herbs as always were fun...fresh and picked after our doggies got run.

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Doesn't that colander fulla taters look divine...now to add the others and what a feast...for eyes and mouths...LMBO

Soup de jour!

Made a great big pot of soup...what with the cooler weather, it is so much a welcomed addition to dinners.

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We just finished stacking firewood we split and topped up our 21 walls of wood--just short one and a bit of room to air dry more on. Nothing better than comfort foods as the fall time rushes up on us...one of my spouse's favourite jokes to me is that if I look tired or down in the dumps...that perhaps I might need a "comfort roast" which probably is not that far off the mark eh...dang people that know you better than you know yourself! LOL

Frost last night...harvested some beans yesterday. Such a shame here...the plants just get going and flowers galore and the winter blasts start up...covered up this one plant on Aug 20 with a towel, last night, waste of time because it poured rain...

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Still not a bad harvest for two plants.

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I got really irritated with the weather this June...middle of June we got FOUR days straight of frost...that beat the beans down but Hero said, leave them when "I" wanted to rip them out of the ground in frustration over supposedly seeing FROST in June...after June 1st, we should be free of frost for at least two months...oh well. Once again, he was right...we got beans as a taste...this year!

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I have sliced them, will parboil them for ten minutes to kill any toxins and since there are probably only TWO meals, not freeze them but one could put them in a plastic freezer bag and safely put them in the freezers for later.

Second sown oat crop is heading out too...still thinking ROLLED Oat cereal might warrant some kept for us to eat! ​

In the greenhouse, got one cucumber (can you pickle just ONE?) and some slicing ones...very tiny tho and may not get big...three okra plants and maybe five okras on the grow.

Green tomatoes...to ripen to what colour?​

These are BLACK plums...lookin' green?​

My greenhouse tomatoes are all flowering and most of the 27 varieties HAVE green tomatoes growing...probably will not vine ripen...sigh, no heat but harvest the green ones (black, red, yellow, mixtures of colours and shapes...) put in dark place with a ripe apple and they will colour up, inside our house.

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The hair sheeps are still feasting on green grass...one bonus of our WET year...will put the ram in round about November for lambs five or so months later...then hope for more grass time for the lambs and milky Mommas to consume. Then I can truly think about what recipes to do up for LAMB...homegrown lambees!

Aug 25, 2016 - seating area in the Man Porch ​

Ordered in a mega sized barbeque to replace our old used up one...

Aug 23 2016 - chicken, corn, first Alta Blush potatoes and some mixed veg in the pot
Running outta room...hard to believe!

We have a fireplace in the Man Porch, so no real excuse why we can't be making meals on the barbeque even with the colder weather charging in. Small fire and the BQ should keep our old bones warm enough to get food preparation completed...

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Been doing alot of rotissering on the porch!

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Pork shoulder roast was magnificent...and cheap too...fed us for two rounds of dinners and was half a roast, still got another chunk in freezer. Next time, we shall put barbeque sauce on the roast...this time, we left it without sauce and the taste was still really nice. Lots of fat dripped off and the roast was spoon tender...lol.

August 20, 2016


Rotisserie Pork shoulder roast with veg and herbs​

Benny, you could just as easily do the same kind of cooking for a LAMB shoulder roast with the same good end results. I too am looking forward to switching out pork in many of our recipes WHEN I have my own lamb to use. So excited and hoping I don't carve up portions of the lamb so I regret how I butchered it for cooking. We shall see...we shall see! Talked to another lady that just lives down the next quarter from us. She is getting Dorpers again too for homegrown lamb. She prefers a six month old Dorper lamb saying she does not like feeding a meat lamb hay...that it should grow to market weigh on green grass, not hay when possible...I am still thinking to go with Benny's advice and go by weights (40-45 kg or 88 to 100 pounds), not necessarily months like ten months could be too long for some individuals. One thing we did agree upon, this lady and I...that leaving a male lamb intact but harvesting them young was a good strategy...intact, the ram lamb grows better than one you wether. More to see how it turns out. So much to look forward to!

Aug 22 2016 - Boletus edulis
And no Benny, I never did try eating this one...bugs and slugs found it before I did...
Maybe one day I will get quicker to harvest them...and alot more braver! LOL​

Hope the new baby is allowing attimus and family to sleep a bit more than when babies first arrive at home. I can only imagine how busy the household is...time flies when having fun!

Doggone & Chicken UP!

Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada

 

[Akrnaf2]

Wonderful! wonderful! wonderful!!!
It is so beutiful to see all your products!
I could live forever like that!
I could make some wonderful meals from them!
We have had here a purple variety of potato called Vitulet, but I cant find it anymore

I have mango, avocado, lemon, guava, olives,pomegranate, caeambulla, Anona,grapefruit. Tangerines, blood oranges, the star fruit is sweet sawer and l love it very much!
I will try to make some olive oil from my olives this year.
Do you intend to process some of your wonderful lamb I have seen in your post?
Thanks gor sharing Tara!