Ok first off, sorry for being MIA to this blog for so long! My only excuse is that during spring and summer, I tend to blog less as I’m occupied elsewhere. So forgive me if posts are few & far between between now & fall.

But I had to write today my quest for a butter bell. What’s a butter bell? It’s an ingenious little ceramic crock that sits on a counter and stores butter. Yes, stores it on the counter. As in not in the fridge. A bell-shaped area is attached to the lid, and you put the butter in that, then invert it back into the crock that holds fresh water. The water creates a seal and keeps the butter fresh—the best part is that it keeps it soft and spreadable. Mmmmm.

I love this idea; I’m taken in by all the ways that people did things before things like refrigerators. I don’t like being so totally dependent on a refrigerator, an appliance that costs so much money to buy, to operate, and to fix/replace. We think of these things as “necessary” for life, but people lived for millions of years without them (and plenty still do). I often wonder how I might live without one (because I’m odd and I think about such things). Part of my simplifying and looking into homesteading ways includes considering how I might do without things I have been conditioned to think I can’t do without.

Little “gadgets” like butter bells are one way. I’d wanted one a few months back, but for varying reasons ended up forgetting about them. But then today the (awesome) blog Chickens in the Road posted about them, and my interest was renewed. Must. Have! Admittedly, I want one if for no other reason than to shock and surprise friends who come over…first they’re always surprised that I bake my own bread daily, but then to top that off by offering them butter that’s stored right there in the kitchen, not in the fridge…*cue maniacal laughter* I can see the expressions now! Priceless! Perhaps I should learn the words to the Sweeney Todd song sung by Mrs. Lovett, “Worst Pies in London,” so I can sing it while I offer bread and butter bell butter…hehehehehe.

So I went to buy a butter bell on Amazon.com, and oy.  There are lots of butter bells out there! Egad. I had no idea. I was going to get the one that Suzanne blogged about, since it’s inexpensive, but then as I looked I found not one but THREE that I like. Goodness, how to choose?

There’s the plain, inexpensive one, which is lovely and rustic and would do just fine…

Then there’s the adorable one marked “butter” and comes with its own spreading knife! Now that’s really cute. And there’s no mistaking what’s in it:

But then there is the Le Creuset model. In case you didn’t know (and I’m not sure I’ve blogged about it on here, actually), I love Le Creuset. LOVE it. I’m slowly collecting it as I can. So I almost have to get this one:

But…but…this one is three times the cost of the plain one. LE sigh.

Whenever I do finally make a choice and get one, I’ll be sure to blog about my experiences with it (including any guest reactions when they first see it…hehe).

Happy St. Patrick’s Day…lovely day for a Guinness, isn’t it?

Is a Guinness “real food?” People do claim that it is a full meal in a glass. It’s fermented, although I’ve yet to hear of raw Guinness (could be interesting though, right?). It’s made with real ingredients. However, today’s Guinness is put through a bit more than earlier versions, and it’s pasteurized. But for occasional celebrations, whether or not the dark brew really is “good” for you, it’s a nice treat. Here are a few facts about this popular beer:

• Guinness was first made in 1759.
• Guinness stout (the most common one people drink) is made from water, barley, hops, brewer’s yeast, and is treated with isinglass finings, made from the air bladders of fish.
• It is pasteurized and filtered.
• The dark color and strong taste come from roasting the barley.
• Draught Guinness, and the cans with the widgets, contain nitrogen as well as carbon dioxide; this gives it its smoothness and the creamy head.
• Guinness is not meant to be consumed “cold;” it does come out fairly cool from the tap in Ireland, where temperatures tend to be cooler, but traditional Guinness is not meant to be “chilled” or refrigerated. The colder it is, the less flavor you can taste, and if you aren’t drinking it for flavor, why bother?
• Guinness is an acquired taste; it is very bitter, and Americans are not used to bitter tastes (is it any wonder, when sugars are put into just about everything the majority of Americans eat?). Once you acquaint your taste buds to it, though, the true taste of Guinness is very, very enjoyable.
  • A note on bitters: Tasting something bitter in your mouth stimulates your body to secrete more digestive juices, which results in better digestion all the way through. The use of bitters goes back centuries as a digestive tonic and aid. Perhaps this effect is one reason why people reported feeling good after drinking Guinness over other beers back in 1920s, which led to the infamous claims that “Guinness is good for you.”
• Have you heard about how a Guinness in Dublin tastes better than anywhere else? It’s true! The ones I had in Ireland were better…and one secret is that the water used to make the brew there comes from a spring in County Kildare.
• Most people consider Guinness to be strong (alcohol-wise)…but consider that today’s Guinness is not as strong as it was in the 19th century.

For a couple of laughs…

About to go on the official tour of Guinness at the St. James’s Gate brewery in Dublin, 1997. I’m on the far right. Way back when I had brown hair.

Doing what one does at a pub in Ireland. This was taken in Killarney, 1997. It’s been so darn long, and I am dying to go back!

While a pint of stout is not exactly on the usual menu of “real food”…today is a perfect example of when to make exceptions. If you indulge in a pint, enjoy!

This post is part of Real Food Wednesdays for March 17, 2010.

Let me say right now that I think bone broth is the easiest, most delicious, and most cost-effective way of improving and maintaining health; it is true kitchen alchemy, the power of the hearth at work. I’m going to write soon about that power in more detail, but for today I’ll just focus on another method of creating the liquid gold (ways to use the stock, other than making soup, will be coming soon).

In “Chapter 1,” I made stock in a pot on my stove, cooking the chicken with the stock for the entire time. Awesome stock, bland chicken, lol. This time I roasted the chicken first, harvested the meat, and then made the stock from the carcass, all done in a crock pot. I’ve read that this method is supposed to be “easier” than stovetop stock, but to me it was pretty much the same, although I realized I was a bit less concerned about leaving the crock on all night as opposed to a simmering pot on the stove. However, this new method did raise new questions.

Here’s the basic outline of what I did:

1. Rinse chicken, pat dry, plop into crock (I put it breast-down to help “juice-en up” the white meat).
2. Added some halved garlic cloves.
3. Put on lid, turn crock on low, cook for 8ish hours.
4. When done, take off/out all meat, leave bones in crock along with juices (I didn’t remove the carcass, just picked it over while still in the crock).
5. Add water to bones & juices.
6. Add couple of tablespoons of raw vinegar (the vinegar helps get all the minerals out of the bones), re-cover, then let sit for an hour.
7. Turn crock to high.
8. After rolling “boil”/cook is going, turn to low.
9. Simmer for 24 hours.
10. About 6ish hours from done, I added carrots & onions (only veggies I had on hand to add).
11. When done, I strained everything from the stock, and let the stock cool.
12. Once cooled, I put it in the fridge to cool more overnight and to let the fat rise.
13. The next day, skim off the solidified fat and transfer the stock to jars for freezing.

Ok, so that was the basic process. Here are the questions I came up against:

• When doing stock in a stovetop pot, with a whole chicken, you add enough water to cover the chicken. I have not yet measured exactly how much that is. When I did the crock pot stock, by the time I added water to it the carcass was a pile of unconnected bones sitting in juices—I had *no* idea how much water to add, so I winged it. Silly me didn’t measure this time, either, but by the end I definitely had less stock than when I made it on the stovetop. I think this means the stock I have is more “concentrated” than before?
• The bones/juices were warm (obviously) when I added the vinegar to them, and they sat warm(ish) yet cooling for the hour while the vinegar did its thing. Does it matter that it was warm?
• The stock never boiled enough to create “scum” on top to skim off; does this matter?

Yep, I’m probably the most analytical cook in the history of hearth-tenders. I think it’s fallout from all the “food safety” claptrap that corporate powers-that-be try to pummel into our psyche; not that food safety is bad, but fear of food is, which is what their “food safety” is all about: fear. They want us afraid so that we buy their processed/drugged/cloned/irradiated “food.” I refuse to buy it, so that means learning all the ins and outs of cooking my own food…but I find that their planted fears linger, urging me to worry over this little detail or that little detail, concerned that I might overlook one little thing that could sicken me. I know I’m working to regain my natural instincts about food and nourishment, and that regaining those instincts will take time. Each success makes me feel one step closer, and even though I end up with a passel of questions with each success, I try to remember that it’s a part of the process. The fears will pass, and my long-unused kitchen instincts will grow.

As for the chicken this time around, cooking it first was a nice step in that it made it ready to eat much more quickly, but I still cooked it a bit too long and it was a tad drier than I want. It wasn’t nearly as dry as it was the other time I made stock, but it was still not perfectly juicy (although it did fall right off the bone again). I suspect this is because I’m using a pretty small bird yet using larger-bird cooking times. Next time I do this, I’ll roast the bird for less time.

So as of now, despite feeling that leaving a crock pot on is relatively safer than a simmering stovetop pot, my preference is for the stovetop method of making stock, if only because I feel like I get “more” stock and also get to skim off crud. Of course, neither of these might matter all that much. But there’s something about a big pot slowly bubbling on the stove that speaks to me much more distinctly than a plugged-in device taking up counter space.

I’d love to hear from you about your experiences with crock pot stock.

I also plan to start a page on the blog dedicated to all of my favorite real food/food issues/natural healing videos that I’ve come across over the years. So in honor of that page-to-be, here is a video that I found only late last year, but has inspired me so much that I can now say without hesitation that it is a significant source of inspiration to me. It’s got wonderful music, great ideas, and beautiful images, and I never tire of watching it. Meet the Dervaes family of San Diego…if you haven’t heard of them, go to Path to Freedom and see what amazing things they’ve done. Wait, watch this video first…then go to their site. My favorite quote, at the beginning, from Jules Dervaes: “I would say growing food is one of the most dangerous occupations on the face of this earth. Because you are in danger of becoming free.”

This post originally appeared on my other blog, Avidly Dreaming.

Ok. So. I finally got my hands on a copy of Nourishing Traditions. I have this post by Katie at Kitchen Stewardship bookmarked & referenced. I’ve been really looking forward to making my own bone broth/stock the real way, full of all the goodies that can only be gotten from the chicken’s bones through long, slow cooking. Making bone broth is simple and yields so many rewards! Then again, anything “simple” I always overthink, and my first true bone broth was no different. I also had to deal with a few things I’d not considered.

Confession #1: I’ve never cooked with an entire chicken before. Ever. Why? Well, I’ve never had to. My mom used to, but when I went out on my own I always cooked boneless chicken breasts, because they were simple to use…and I didn’t have to contend with an entire skeleton.

Confession #2: I have a problem contending with an entire skeleton. I guess I can blame it on too many horror novels & movies growing up; for some reason, when I see too many bones together in one place that look too much like an actual creature, I get “the willies.” A few bones from a wing or thigh are ok (or I’m just used to them), since they are separated from the entirety. But a whole carcass? *shudder*. I remember ages ago, when my mom would cook roast whole chickens or turkeys, and I’d just look away and let her deal with it, and let someone else carve it, etc. Pretty sad and laughable, right? For all my growing up around animals and gardens and nature, I am very “citified” in my relation to meat. But here I am now, determined to learn how to cook a whole bird (although I’ll never, ever be able to see/be near actual slaughter; that’s an entirely different issue I won’t go into now). I sometimes think I hear chuckling nearby, and it must be my mom, vastly amused in the afterlife. I also wonder if she’s not whispering in my ear, “Stop being a ninny and cook a chicken.”

Confession #3: When I purchased the whole, pastured chicken, I was feeling proud of myself. It’s the small steps that matter!

So a couple of days ago, I put the chicken (it came without innards—I’ll tackle those eventually) in a stock pot with some water & splash of vinegar to soak, an hour later added some veggies:

Brought it to a boil, skimmed as needed, and started simmering it for 24 hours.

And then the overthinking kicked in:

Can I really leave the stove on all night? For 24 hours? Will my roommate kill me for jacking up the electric bill? Will this jack up the electric bill? How much of a fire hazard is this? Will I be able to sleep with the stove on all night? What if all the liquid evaporates? (I didn’t say my worries were sensible.)

My roommate was a little dubious of it, too, and suggested I get up in the middle of the night to check on it, just to be safe (I didn’t—slept like a rock). Before going to bed, I’d also worried that the stock was too hot or wait is it not simmering enough? Oh look the chicken floated to the top and so a portion of it was above the water line and was that ok or not?

When I got up the next morning, some of the veggies had cooked too much and looked “burned:”

I was not at all sure that was ok or not, but decided to just keep on. At this point, I realized that sure, the entire thing might not turn out, but I’d learn a lot in the process.

Near the end of 24 hours, I tossed in parsley for the last 10 minutes of cooking, and then it was done:

I proceeded to (clumsily) remove the chicken to a plate for picking,

and then strain out the stock,

The sodden remains of the veggies went into the compost.

And then it was time to pick the chicken. This was a surprisingly relaxing thing to do, lol. I filled a big bowl with chicken, which I’ll be eating for days:

The chicken on its own was a bit dry (roommate: “of course it is, you cooked the crap out of it!”), but still good. However, during the picking I had a flare-up of ohgodsthisisaskeleton: it was picking around the spine and ribs that did it. I had to stop a few times, tell myself I can do this. Yeah yeah yeah, I sound like a complete wimp, making a fuss out of something so trivial. But as a very visual person, these things really work on me. I just kept reminding myself that eating a chicken this way, as opposed to just boneless breasts, is vastly healthier and very cost-saving. I got through the picking and again felt like I’d accomplished something.

Instead of discarding all this, maybe I should start making my own horror movies…*insert cheesy, creepy, 80s-horror-movie music here*

The stock went into the fridge to cool so that the fat would rise, and I gotta say, not much fat rose. I was afraid I’d done something wrong, but my roommate assures me that the amount of fat that rose is normal. So I’m going to just plow ahead, even though I worry that uh oh what if the overcooked, dark-browned veggies somehow messed up the stock, or contaminated it somehow, I don’t want to make myself sick, what if I didn’t keep it hot enough all night and bacteria got in? I won’t know until I get sick. What if…?

Again, I know I sound a bit nuts (a friend of mine has nicknamed me “Nutsy,” and although he did it due to my peanut allergy, it might be even more fitting than he realized), but I want to be honest about all my fears as I learn this stuff. I do wish I’d learned this from my mom, but back when I could have, I wasn’t interested. So all I can do is just plow ahead now, learning as I go.

The next time I make bone broth I’m going to try making it in a slow cooker, since for some reason leaving that on all night doesn’t seem as worrisome. I might even roast the chicken first for dinner, then make stock from the carcass. Not sure yet, but that’ll be chapter 2 of my bone broth adventures.

Now to find (real food) recipes for shredded chicken…