The Colonel Gets the Axe

Okay, maybe just figuratively, but it was a near thing. The Colonel decided she was a gender-bending chicken and while that's all well and good, the rooster-like behaviors and aggressiveness were definitely not. It was cute when the Colonel got up in our faces when we went into the pen, it was even cute how she zipped around to always be in front of us (and by extension the camera, photos below). It was not cute when she began crowing in the morning and whenever we went outside. Crowing? Yeah, crowing. At the very least it was some awful chicken equivalent that made us want to put her out of our misery. Keep in mind, these are secret chickens. Secret chickens cannot be crowing. If she had not been genetically guaranteed to be female and was not laying eggs, I would have questioned her sex.

When we could take it no longer, our not-so-secret transgendered chicken went to live on a nice farm. No, really! Most generously, Aunt Deb allowed us to trade the Colonel for one of her chickens. (Thanks again, Aunt Deb!) As soon as the Colonel hit the ground at Aunt Deb's she immediately assumed rooster posture and began jumping on all the other chickens' backs, ripping out their feathers, and making a general pest of herself. The Colonel, I'm afraid, is a nasty, domineering bitch. Now at least, she is a nasty, domineering bitch somewhere else. In her place we took home Princess, who may be the ugliest chicken in creation, but is a sweet, gentle, and quiet chicken that lays the biggest eggs I've ever seen (pictures to follow eventually). And so, Colonel, so long and good riddance.

Fresh Pickles

I've taken the day (mostly) off and figure with a little free time on my hands (or at least time during which nothing is extremely pressing) I figured I'd update this with some months old stuff. First, fresh pickles (probably two months ago).

Noticing a glut of pickling cucumbers at the farmer's market, E and I decided to try our hand at pickles for a second time¹. Unfortunately, the cucumbers sat in the fridge for a week and had lost a bit of their crunch. We didn't have any PickleCrisp either (apparently just calcium chloride) and I'm not familiar with alum, so floppy pickles it was going to have to be. As our pickling bucket was not clean, I got lazy and decided on fresh (refrigerator) pickles instead and found a recipe in the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving (p292 "Refrigerated dill slices").

Starting with whole pickles, I started slicing them with the mandoline, but after losing about 1g of thumb, switched to the food processor. The slices were pretty thin, but it was much easier than trying to do it by hand. I quartered ~10 pickles to add a little variety.

The recipe called for both pickling spice and dill seeds, mustard seeds, a bit of garlic, and peppercorns. I never stopped to consider what's actually in pickling spice, but after running out of the paltry 1/4 c we had in the pantry, became quickly interested when I had to make my own. It was a proud moment when I realized our kitchen was sufficiently stocked to make pickling spice from scratch. Most ingredients were unsurprising, with the exception of cinnamon, allspice, ginger and cardamom. Sure enough, when I was done smashing it all together, it looked almost exactly like commercially available pickling spice.

I prepared the jars by first adding the pickling spice, supplemental spices, and garlic, then packed them with the cucumber slices (or spears). After ladling in the pickling liquid I closed the jars up and allowed them to cool. Next, I stuck them in the back of the fridge for a few months and completely forgot about them. A few weeks ago I dug some out and served them to E's family at a cookout. Salty. Delicious, but salty. Hopefully I'll remember to rinse them off before serving them again.


¹ The first batch of pickles were fermenting in the front room for about three months before we remembered them. Although they had not been de-scummed for quite a while, E said they looked and smelled like pickles. We did not eat them to see if they tasted like pickles too. We will certainly try these again, but probably not until next summer. I have a feeling our bucket will be devoted to sauerkraut and other things in the mean time. Another digression: E said "I was thinking at some point we could repurpose the front basement room for temperature-sensistive experiments. Once the oil tank is gone." Best husband ever. And I hereby promise to never mix work yeast with home yeast. Or at least never to eat work yeast.)

Reminders:

• The pickles were good, but too salty
• Do not make so many pickles next time - too many pickles