Catching up, part II: Canning

Much like the rest of the world, E and I did a bunch of canning* over the summer. We bought all sorts of produce at the farmers' market*, and made it tasteless and potentially poisonous by boiling it under intense pressure in little glass jars. At one point we actually had so many cans to process at the same time we bought a giant pressure cooker that fits a whopping 10 quart jars or 20-odd pint jars, or something like that. (It's also supposed to produce chicken stock in around 20 minutes, but that doesn't consider the time it takes to build up or release the pressure. Still, a major time saver.) Thanks to a couple fantastic books, particularly this one, we had very easy, straightforward recipes to work with, and successfully (so far at least) canned diced tomatoes, roasted red peppers, corn, lima beans (a bit disgusting looking with all the starch floating around in the jar - at least we are hoping that's what it is), and really good salsa made from seconds bought on the cheap.

Before:
After:
Reminders for next year:

• We have already used all of our diced tomatoes -- could have done 10 quarts easily.
  
• Way fewer roasted peppers, or find some suckers to take them off our hands.
• Do some creamed corn as well as whole kernel; the most delicious thai shrimp soup in the world looks simply nasty with whole kernel corn and doesn't have as nice a texture. Or stop being lazy and use a blender.
  
• The salsa recipe (from the Ball book, I believe) could use more jalapenos and cilantro.
  

Catching up, part I: Princess

It has been blissfully quiet with the Colonel gone. Sure, we hear the occasional egg song bright and early at 7:30 a.m. on otherwise peaceful Saturday mornings, but no more chicken screaming "I'm gonna mess you bitches up if you come near my coop". Truly a lovely thing. So, logical time to introduce the Colonel's replacement: Princess.

Princess, as you can see here, is missing most of her beak. Debeaking is a disgusting practice, and done to keep chickens from pecking each other to death in atrocious conditions (she was bought at auction and this had been done much earlier, so sadly we couldn't prevent it). Unfortunately, this left Princess unable to defend herself against the comb tweaking and feather pulling that occurred upon her introduction to our small flock. She earned her name, in fact, because 1) she is so ugly (and was more so all mangy), and 2) she required a lot of individual care: as the other chickens were picking on her, she had to be in the coop alone to eat and drink, requiring at least twice daily herding of the other chickens out of the coop and close attention in general.

E and I found the pecking order battles unpleasant, and in a fit of productivity I built a divider for the run. Better all the chickens be a little crowded and the Princess have a little quiet time than we be stuck with a sad, mangy chicken that required us to actually do stuff.





The divider was promising - Princess enjoyed her space and was eating and drinking well. However, the morning after she received her own little space, the divider failed. Mostly. When we came out to check on her, we found both the Chairman and Matzoh Ball hanging out on Princess' side. Apparently they dug a little hole under the fence and squeezed under. The fence was, however, totally successful in keeping Pol Pot out, who was too big to fit under the hole. Poor Pol Pot sat on the other side of the fence jealously watching the other chickens. Poor fat girl. This more or less ended the isolation phase.











After about a week and a half, Princess got up the courage to leave the coop, and since then has been behaving more or less normally. The Colonel was our best layer (not a big surprise since she was a production bird), but Princess easily surpasses the Colonel, her eggs being gigantic (barely fitting in an egg carton) and constant - at least 5 a week. All in all, we made out in this trade, I think.