Sunday, June 24, 2012

Farmers Market Recipes

Yesterday we were at the farmers market and it always amazes me the feedback we get from our customers. My husband has made a habit of asking how each person cooks the chicken that they buy from us. Maybe one day with all my spare time I'll write a cookbook. One of our regular customers came up to the booth today and said that they cooked the chicken with a Moroccan rub on the grill,my mouth waters just thinking about it. Another customer said that they had baked it in the oven with fennel and lemongrass. Several times it had people tell us that they've made it curried. And then sometimes we have people who ask us what they should do with the chicken. My husbands usual response is beer can chicken. We have found that to be the most simple tastiest recipe we have tried yet. For those of you who haven't heard of it you simply take a decent sized broiler chicken big enough to fit a beer can inside the opening,tip the chicken on top of the beer can standing up and put it in a pan in your oven or on the grill leaving the beer inside can. You can season the outside of the chicken anyway you like. You can look inside the home goods department of your local department store and even find special racks to hold the beer can and chicken in place. In the fall we like to substitute the beer with apple cider. Give it a try I can almost guarantee you'll love it!

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

A Little Bit About Us

Nestled amongst fields of hay that are traced by country roads lies our 125 acre farm on the outskirts of the quaint little village of Greene, NY.  Our Family has owned this farm for the past 12 years and have searched for just the right thing to do with it. Having once been a dairy operation many years ago and then becoming a horse farm prior to us purchasing it, its' conglomeration of different buildings lended itself perfectly for a multipurpose farm. We began having a hobby farm with a few goats, a couple sheep, a handful of cows, two horses and chickens pecking around (after all , what is a farm with out chickens!) After a few years of tackling hay bails, feed bills and vet costs we very quickly realized that farming is an expensive hobby!! Now that we had been bitten by the farming bug, we needed a way to fund the farming lifestyle we had all grown to love. The thinking caps got put on and we decided this year to raise pastured chicken along with a herd of goats and sheep. We started processing our own chicken right off the bat right here on our farm and within a few months we began turning one of our existing barns into a NYS inspected Poultry Processing facility. What a project that turned out to be !! Now we raise and process our own, all natural, chicken and provide a processing service for other people's birds and rabbits. It is a lot of hard work, but well worth the adventures we get to share as a family. So stay tuned to hear all about our experiences, our pointers on farm life, our recipes and our favorite farms and places to go to get other great local products!