What I cooked today:
Papa Murphy's Take and Bake Pizza: I went into town today, so I brought home pizza. If we had been thinking, we would have made something else for dinner (see below), but I guess that will have to wait until tomorrow!
Update:
We did it! I still can't believe we did it. And I only screamed a few times.
So, as with most things that Patrick and I do, we decided around 7pm tonight that tonight was the night. We could have waited until tomorrow, but, hey, why put it off any longer. Lets just do it.
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| This is what they looked like at 7:03 this evening. |
We went back and forth on how to accomplish this. We've talked a few times about hanging them upside down and cutting the jugular. Then, there was the time honored classic of cutting off their heads with an ax. Or wringing the necks, like we did last time. Hmmm, lets just pick one.
I was smart enough to get a plastic bag to hold all the 'stuff'... you know, like stuff I didn't want to keep. I put it inside a stock pot, since I couldn't find a garbage can, and we tend to just go with what we have. I found a cardboard box, that I could use as my 'cutting' table. And I sharpened a filleting knife from my kitchen.
Patrick grabbed one of the chickens (the smaller of the two, I think). He held her in his arms until she calmed down. Then he grabbed the neck in his hand and .... swung it around a few times. It was a lot heavier than last time and it flapped a lot more. And you know the saying about how they continue to twitch after they are dead? Yes, they really, really do. We were debating if it was really dead, so we decided to go with plan B, and cut off it's head.
So, we got a piece of 2x4 and put it on the ground, laid the flailing chicken on the board and swung the ax. Uh, nothing. Did you hit it hard enough? Whack. Still not done. Whack. 3rd time is not the charm. Whack. Ok, now the head is actually off the chicken. Of course, the eyes are still blinking and the wings are still flapping. Ewwwwww. Totally not right.
After a few minutes, it was finally done with it's writhing around thing, and we put it upside down in the bucket, to let the blood drain out. As you can see, the kids were there to help. Connor was horrified, but at the same time, he thought it was kinda cool. Katie was a little stunned that we actually did it, even though we had warned her. She got over it, but it was a little gruesome. Allen thought it was awesome.
And then I got to work. Of course, it was my job to do everything from here on out. I decided to go with the 'skinning' it idea, rather than trying to pluck all the feathers. Everyone warned me that the plucking thing is awful, since you have to dunk the chicken in hot, but not boiling water and get it drenched, then pull the feathers off one by one. That just does not sound fun.
So, I just slid my knife under the skin and proceeded to skin it. The skin and feathers came off easily. Since I've been octo-secting fryer chickens for a while now, I pretty much knew where the breast bones were, and how to cut around them, without cutting through the meat. I slid the knife over the breasts and then turned it over and worked on the back. Of course, I'd kinda forgotten about the insides, but they came back to get me as I turned the chicken back to its front.
The intestines had poured out of the cavity and it looked like something from a horror film. Guts and blood and liver and spleen flopping out of the chicken. I admit, I screamed like a little girl. Arghhh. Aaaaaah. Ughhhh. Not right. I think the kids were laughing at me (I know Allen was!) but I managed to get myself calmed down and get back to work. The worst part was that now I had to put my hand inside and pull out all the innards. It was still warm and gooey. Ewwww. And you had to make sure that you didn't cut the intestines, because you didn't want poop all over the meat. So, I had to be careful.
After a few minutes (about 10), I had the entire chicken skinned and eviscerated. I cut off the feet and a little more of the neck, and it was ready to be cleaned off.
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| Ryan and Katie were right there, helping! |
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| Ryan and Patrick, pouring water over the chicken to clean off the remaining blood (and grass!) |
We put the cleaned off chicken in a pan and put it in the house to be further processed. Then we started in on the second chicken. This one went a lot easier. Patrick wrung it's neck, and it popped with the second turn. You could feel the neck and knew that it was done. We cut off his neck and proceeded with the 'processing'. I was much more prepared for the insides. In fact, this time, I went straight for them, and pulled them out, without having them jump out at me. I think we had the 2nd one cleaned and in the pan in about 1/2 the time!
Once inside the house, I cut up each chicken into parts. I really don't like wings, so I just tossed them instead of trying to de-feather them or skin them. I ended up with breasts, thighs and legs. Before cutting, the chickens were about 4 1/2 pounds each. I ended up with about 3 1/2 pounds of breasts and about 2 1/2 pounds of legs and thighs.
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| And this is what they looked like at 9:02pm... hehehe |
The rest went into the stock pot! Patrick has said that he'll stay up tonight, to keep an eye on it (since it needs about 10 hours of boiling to be ready). Tomorrow morning, I'll put them into jars and pressure can the stock. I'm not sure if the stock will taste different, or not.
Since we already had dinner tonight, I couldn't cook the chicken for dinner. But you can bet that we'll be having chicken tomorrow night. I really, really hope that they taste good. And I hope that feeding them dandelions won't have effected the taste!
Oh my goodness, what a day!! Amazingly, I'm not totally traumatized. The kids were awesome. Katie had a few tears, but handled it like a champ. Ryan was a little upset, but got over it quickly. Now he really wants to go fishing. Go figure!
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