2014 Egg Tally

This year we added four new chickens, bringing us up to a total of 8. We felt that was a few too many for our city lot to handle, so we ultimately rehomed two. Whitney, one of our original Barnevelders, was a frequently talkative lady, and ultimately had to get the boot. She also had some strange summer egg-laying strike, so that was a somewhat easy decision. Annie, one of our new chicks was flat out not suitable for city life. She SCREAMED. You'd let her out and she still screamed. While I had an emotional attachment to Whitney, Annie was lucky she didn't become dinner. Don't worry, our wonderful chicken store was happy to take them off my homes. I believe Whitney was rehomed, but Annie is still there (and still screaming). 2014 Egg Chart by Chicken Butters: 124 eggs Sara: 146 eggs Tina: 119 eggs Whitney: 54 eggs Ali: 103 eggs Ethel: 106 eggs Josie: 81 eggs 2014 Egg Chart by Month January: 21 eggs February: 16 eggs March: 65 eggs April: 78 eggs May: 79 eggs June: 56 eggs July: 40 eggs August: 59 eggs September: 107 eggs October: 90 eggs November: 79 eggs December: 6 eggs The Americauna's egg laying is noticeably down, although I believe they laid more months out of the year compared to 2013. They got hit with a molt and the darkness of winter means they stopped laying in October this year. Sara redeemed herself for last year's broody shenanigans and hasn't had another spout. Lucky for her, she was on my rehoming short list! The new gals have certainly earned their keep! Once they started laying they came on strong, and minus some weird winter molt for Josie, they've laid all winter. Ironically, she started laying in the proper spot post-molt...

2014 Garden Tally

Apples -2

Basil – 3 lb

Beets – 22.29 pounds

Birds eye pepper – 75

Broccoli – 5 lb 1 oz

Bulgarian Carrot – 10

Cabbage – 11.16 pounds

Carrots – 10.78 pounds

Cauliflower – 4 lb 3 oz

Corn – 16.91 pounds

Cubanelle pepper - 1.65 pounds

Cucumber – 9.71 pounds

Garlic  14.9 oz

Green Beans – 17.78 pounds

Lettuce – 4 lbs

Onion - 36 lbs 7.5 oz

Plums – 11

Potatoes – 32.85 pounds

Raspberries – 1 qt

Spaghetti Squash – 29.2 pounds

Serrano pepper– 39

Tomato – 26 pounds

Tomatillos - 7.03 pounds

Zucchini – 39.20 pounds

This comes to roughly 270 pounds of food.

Beef Stroganoff

Technically, this is actually Best $#%& Beef Stroganoff, at least according to it's original author. This is the only Stroganoff dish I can remember eating, so while I can't vouch for it being the Best $#%& Beef Stroganoff, I can tell you it's damn good. 

We've mad a few modifications, most notably exchanging the ground beef for stew meat. I won't lie, venison knocks this out of the park, but regular beef isn't bad either. We typically opt for a chuck roast in this application. 

I won't lie; it's not the most appetizing looking dish. You won't care after your first bite though! You can serve this with egg noodles like the traditional recipe, or over green beans for a low-carb version. Personally I prefer it with nothing!

Beef Stroganoff
Adapted from Food.com

Ingredients
1/2 cup minced onions
1/2 cup sour cream
1/3 package cream cheese
4 garlic cloves
1/4 cup butter
1 pound stew meat
1 T Worcestershire
1 t salt
1/4 t pepper
10 fresh mushrooms
1 can cream of mushroom soup (10 3/4 ounces)

Directions
Saute onion and garlic in butter over medium heat.
Stir in meat and brown
Stir in salt, mushrooms, pepper and cook 5 minutes, then stir in soup. Simmer uncovered for 10 minutes.
Stir in sour cream until heated.

Buying grass-fed beef

Not really our cow. Courtesy of Wikipedia.

Having quality food is important to us; it's a major factor in why we have chickens. We know how they are raised, and we can control other factors such as the quality of their food. Unfortunately on our 1/3 acre city lot, that's about all we can do in the livestock realm. We'd eventually like to have our own farm, but we're still searching for other ways to get the quality we are looking for through more traditional outlets.

Thankfully we live in a location where many others have similar values, which makes this kind of food readily available. Many grocery stores, farmers markets and even butcher shops sell local, grass-fed beef. We, however, chose to go with the higher quantity route and purchased half of a cow.

We were able to find one on our local Craigslist last year for $2.75 per pound hanging weight, plus another .60 cents per pound to the butcher and half the kill fee (around $50). It was so good that we contacted the seller again this year to get on the list. There's no off taste in the fat (unlike the first cow we purchased) and is very tender.

For a total of $900, here's what we ended up with in our freezer:
Ground beef - 41 packages, approximately 1 pound each
Stew meat - 7 packages
Soup Bones -5 packages
Heart - 1 package
Liver - 7 packages
Brisket -1 package
Rump roast - 3 packages
Chuck roast - 9 packages
Cross-rib roast - 2 packages
Flank steak - 1 package
Round steak - 8 packages
Sirloin tip steak - 7 packages
T-bone steaks - 7 packages
Ribeyes - 5.5 packages (one only has a single steak)
Short ribs - 7 packages
Round Bone roast - 3 packages
Oxtail - 1
Dog bones - 10 to 15 pounds
Suet - 10 pounds

Potato Soup

Recently our neighborhood grocery store had a Buy One, Get One Free deal on 5-pound bags of potatoes. The Husband, always eager to strike on a good deal, led us to coming home with 10 pounds of potatoes. So what's a two-member household to do with 10 pounds of potatoes? Make Potato Soup of course!

Over the years we've experimented with potato soup recipes, including those with a 50/50 split between cauliflower and potatoes. It's hard to beat the real thing though, 10-pounds in the pantry notwithstanding.

Potato Soup
A Northwest Homestead original

Ingredients
4 large or 6-8 medium-sized potatoes
1/2 pound bacon, diced
1/2 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 t salt
1 t pepper
1 stick butter
1/2 c rice flour (or regular flour)
6 C milk
1 C sour cream
1.5 C shredded cheddar
Green onions (optional)

Directions
Cut potatoes into bite-sized cubes and boil until done in a large soup pot. Set aside.
Cook bacon and set aside.
In soup pot, melt butter and saute garlic and onion until cooked.
Add flour/potato starch and cook for a minute or two. And milk, salt and pepper and bring to a boil over medium heat.
Add the potatoes into the soup and smash half. Cook a minute or two longer, then stir in sour cream.
Add cheese and stir until melted.
Serve with bacon, green onions and a pinch of extra cheese if desired.

Caesar Dressing

Caesar salad seems to be a popular choice among, well, everybody. Then there was me, eating my standard garden salad with ranch. Not that I minded. I find it quite tasty, actually. But in my nearly 30 years of life, I'd found exactly one Caesar salad in my life I could tolerate...and it's located in a hotel several hundred miles away. However, I've now found a Caesar dressing I can eat at home. I dare say I might even like it!

Caesar Dressing
A Northwest Homestead original

Ingredients
3 garlic cloves, minced
6 anchovy fillets
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
3 dashes hot sauce (like Tabasco)
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
2 large egg yolks
2 tablespoons grated parmesan
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil and ½ cup light olive oil

Directions 
1. In a large bowl, using a wooden spoon, mash chopped garlic cloves and anchovies to a fine paste with the salt
2. Stir in all other ingredients except the oils
3. Slowly whisk in oils
4. Top salad with some shredded or peeled parmesan

2013 Final Egg Tally

Now that 2013 is officially behind us it's time to count up the number of eggs our flock produced. First, the good news: There were months where we struggled to keep up with our egg consumption. Now the bad news: It's been a long time since we had that problem. In fact, our ladies haven't laid since October. Even then it only covered one breakfast! Given the age of our chickens they hadn't hit their peak performance last winter. The short number of daylight hours means we didn't start getting eggs until February and nothing of any significance until March. Things were cruising along nicely for a while. Then we got a puppy. His presence seemed to stress them out, and Sara went broody around the middle of June. We tried to break her, but she was extremely stubborn. In fact, the only reason why she came off the darn nest box is to molt. Whitney went on her own strike in August for no apparent reason, but Butters and Tina pulled through until the fall when they hit their own molt. 2013 Egg Chart by Chicken Butters: 158 eggs, average 21.5 in full production months Sara: 83 eggs, average 20.3 in full production months (all of 3) Tina: 164 eggs, average 22.57 in full production months Whitney: 103 eggs, 20.2 average in full production months 2013 Egg Chart by Month January: 0 eggs February: 21 eggs March: 86 eggs April: 94 eggs May: 91 eggs June: 73 eggs July: 60 eggs August: 40 eggs September: 40 eggs October: 4 eggs November/December - 0 eggs The Americauna's are clearly leading the charge both in number of laying months and average number of eggs per month. The best part is we love the breed, so we plan on getting two more Americauna's this spring. The Barnevelder's don't have a great disposition for a backyard flock, and their egg production doesn't make up for it. While they are a fine enough chicken, we won't be getting more. Thankfully though, Sara has redeemed herself somewhat. After six months of being a free-loader, she is finally laying again. We aren't quite sure when it happened since we weren't consistently checking the box for eggs, but there it was last week when I checked. This makes it a full month earlier than her first egg last year. Now if we can just keep her from going Broody....