of potato season! Getting home from a long day of work and heading to the garden to rustle up something for supper is one of the greatest joys of my life. Sometimes I think it's even more so for the fact that I had to get home after a day at work but not sure. Maybe it would be even more delicious to just be at home? I hope to test out the hypothesis in the next couple of years. Anyway, spuds are one of the greatest treats to my mind. It's like a treasure hunt, getting your hands in there and hoping you get some magic. You pull them out and voila, supper that fills the belly and tastes divine. Some people suggest not using up room on potatoes because they're cheap at the grocery store but really, they're easy to grow and I think taste miles better than anything the grocery store has on offer. They're ready for the pot. I cut up the big ones and throw them in boiling water first, adding them in from next largest to smallest. When they're done you can toss them with a little butter and veg, crack an egg over the mass and there you have it: insta-supper from the yard. Not super pretty but soooo delicious.
I would like to send a big shout out to Eagle Creek Potatoes. They don't know I'm doing this nor have they in anyway paid for an endorsement but my potatoes have been the best they've ever been. Now, the Woodsman has something to do with this as well. He and the Young Man built me some amazing raised beds (best Mother's Day gift ever). But these potatoes are absolutely gorgeous. No scab, no blemishes, no nothing that's bad for potatoes. I didn't do anything special to the soil - just from the chicken yard to the garden. And basically neglect them from there. So, get some good seed potatoes and get growing. Many places will tell you not to bother with potatoes. I'm going to tell you to go for it. Even when they're scabby, there's nothing like eating a potato fresh from your own dirt. And they're pretty bomb proof - even when I toss in sprouty ones from the pantry, they do ok. So next year, consider potatoes for an easy, satisfying crop. Stock. Yep, so glamorous. So this is the result of a chicken carcass and a turkey carcass cooked for two days on the woodstove until this was all that was left. Carcasses + water and that's it. None of the "add carrots and onions" and so on. Just water and carcasses. But when you add the carcasses DO NOT fail to add the skin and fat. First of all, those are not unhealthy fats but even you're adverse to the them, they're where a huge amount of the flavour hangs out. So, cook the stock with all of the bits intact and then toss them after. And you can skim off the fat once it' cooled but again, that's going to impact the flavour. Of course, this not only made for the most delicious, "just add a pinch of salt and you're good to go" stock but also left us with chicken stew and dumplings, many meals for the faithful farm dog, and some love bone ash that's great for the garden and greenhouse. Just be sure you have an epically large stock pot for the cooking. It makes a huge difference to have lots of water and a long, slow simmer. |
AuthorI'm a 40-something writer and smallholder living in the wilds of BC with my family, our small herd of Nigerian Dwarf Goats, chickens, ducks, dogs, and cats. Archives
August 2017
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