tools & utensils
Twice-Baked Potatoes on a drizzly day
About once a year I get the urge to bake up a huge batch of twice-baked potatoes for the freezer. It’s a simple operation but one that goes easier if you have everything laid out and ready when the…
My first book! The Gen-Xers, Millennials & Hipster Guide: . . . . . Sharing a Kitchen with Housemates
http://blur.by/1DfRRIz Follow this link to purchase my book in softcover or PDF online.
Our Fabulous Homemade Chicken Plucker
Next weekend is hen culling day; we have some older spent hens and some hens who don’t lay enough to justify dealing with their aggressive barnyard attitude. So on Sunday the flock will go from 29 to 15. This time…
Butchering chickens at home using a steel cone
Today Kip and I butchered the first ten of this season’s 120 chickens. At 4 weeks and 4 days these Harvest Whites from S & G Hatchery in Alabama have been fast gainers – the dressed birds weigh on average…
Everything but the squeal: Rendering fresh lard
I made the first of the season’s lard the other day. It turned out exactly right! My friend Rowena Morrell recommended I render my lard in the oven in my turkey roaster pan at 225 degrees. In the past I…
Hand Made Chocolate: the Aztecs, the Spanish and Us: A Class in Chocolate Craft
Sooooooo, did I mention CHOCOLATE? Creating, savoring, eating chocolate? Our day will be spent exploring all things chocolate. The Aztec rulers drank their chocolate dark and bitter and used cocoa beans as money; after 1530 the Spanish added sugar and…