Marinated Beet Salad Recipe

Enough people seemed to be interested in my HOT beets, so here is the recipe. Can't take all the credit though.... Papaya's Kitchen taught me everything I know... enjoy!


Marinated Beet Salad

Ingredients:
4 lbs beets
2/3 c. red onions -julienned
1 Tbsp garlic- minced
3/4 c. red wine vinegar
1 cup olive oil
1/2 t. black pepper
2.5 tsp salt
goat cheese

Boil the beets 15-20 minutes.

Remove from heat, drain water and let cool.

Remove skins of beets by running under cool water and rubbing on skins with your hands.  Remove tops.

Slice beets and mix with red onions.

Combine other ingredients in a small bowl and mix.

Pour marinade over beets and onions and mix well.

Add small chunks of goat cheese before serving.

Chicken Harvest

On Saturday, June 19th I helped Wild Chick Farms with the butchering of 80 chicken, chook, broilers- dinosaur birds with smelly insides.  Greg woke me up that morning with a cup of joe delivered to me in my bed.  I MAY have hinted to him that this was my preferred method of being roused from slumber, but never did I expect this to happen as visions of chickens danced in my head.  What a pleasant way to be woken up.  I wish I could get a robot to do that for me everyday.  Or just re-program Greg.

Anyways.....  we headed up to Redwood Valley for the chicken slaughter.  Spirits were high and we listened to some David Allen Coe and Charlie Daniels Band to get into the mood.  When we got there, we started rounding up chickens from the chicken tractor and putting them into crates.  Now I have heard a lot of chicken noises, squabbles and squawks in my day, and crowing forth from these chickens was a completely new one.  It was distinctly as if they were saying haaalp!  sorry, nothing can haaalp you now..

The actual slaughter was done by Greg and Matt (of Wild Chick).  Ash, Rhonda, Sara and I were inside the mobile processing unit dressing the chickens.  After I did a few chickens and my nostrils were filled with the hot funk of chicken guts,  post-mortum chicken poo seemed to keep gushing forth and I had knicked a bile gland or two- a little humor was necessary.  I don't think it was dishonorable of their life to move the wings and legs around in a little jiggity jig as we listened to music.  I don't know if Greg got to this point as his job was decidedly more gruesome.  He was wrestling flapping chickens into the killing cones as they screamed for halp, slitting their throats and letting the chickens bleed into buckets.  Every time I looked out the window at him, he seemed to have a horrified grimace on his face.   When he offered to switch jobs, I politely declined.

We had a lovely lunch, and our efforts were rewarded with a chicken, homemade honey, goat cheese and a lingering smell of chicken innards on our hands and clothes.

I am not going to lie, it was pretty hardcore processing that many birds at once.  And I grew up helping to clean countless amounts of birds and fish.  I wonder what it is like a Tyson plant.  Besides having a completely nauseating smell, (which would make the smell I experienced to be a gnat fart in comparison) I really can't imagine how things would work.  Do humans even touch the birds?  I haven't eaten a factory farmed chicken in over ten years, but I can bet you all the chicken hearts in the world, that they couldn't compare to the taste, tenderness, and happiness of the California chickens.

I want to say I have a new appreciation of where my food comes from, but I think because I grew up hunting and having that intimate knowledge that food doesn't just come from the grocery store- it wasn't that sort of experience for me.  And I don't necessarily think that every meat eater should have had their hand inside a chicken cavity groping around for it's trachea to pull our the crop... You should just know that it is what happens when you eat meat... an animal was killed that you are now eating.  I care about the life of the animals I eat.  I want them to have been living a life where they could express their animal selves.  There is no chicken in the world that is programmed to be shoved 50 deep in a crate, crapping on the head of its' kin, and never tasting a fat juicy worm or bug pulled out of the ground.

If I were to die and come back into this world a chicken, I would first want to be a free range Kauai feral chicken, but if I were to be a meat bird I would hope to be a pasture-raised chicken living out my numbered days in Northern California.   

Chicken Chaser

Due to the mountain of weeds that has overpowered our compost pile, our chickens now have a ladder out of the coop.  The chickens have flown the coop the past two days, which is at first aggravating because they inevitably are in the bed I just planted scratching up the seeds and eating my starts.  DARGH!  But, whatever, things can be re-planted... I gots to chase me some chooks!

The scene stays the same.  I chase each chicken around our yard, the neighbors yard, into and out of the raspberry bushes, along the fence until I can finally get them trapped somewhere, I reach down- they squawk and squabble and then give in.  As soon as the pursuit begins the chicken almost immediately attempt to particle transport through the fence back into their pen...  They stick their head through the fence and jump up and flap their wings against the fence- hasn't worked yet.  Keep trying though.

I love watching, listening to, chasing, feeding and co-habitating with my chickens... and on Saturday I am going to be participating in a good ol' fashioned chicken slaughter.  I will let you know how that goes.

Steam-Powered Aereoplane

I have now been traveling for 17 hours, with 2 to go before I reach Iowa just in time to take a shower, compose myself and get ready for my cousin's rehearsal dinner! Tomorrow she is marrying a ginuwine Okie. I have only spent time passing through Oklahoma but I look forward to exploring its many wonders.

I started the day at the airport by dashing from working at the farmers market to the airport. At the farmers market, my table was right next to Rob, "the Tri-Tip Guy" so in addition to being taunted the entire market, I now smelled like a slow roasted cacophony of trip-tip, pork loin and pork ribs. When Rob offered to wrap me up a half rack of ribs- how could I refuse?

So, there I was in the Arcata airport, eating ribs and drinking water from a mason jar while waiting for my flight. It was pretty country, but so tasty. I could see the envy in the eyes of all who turned around to see why the terminal suddenly smelled of smoked meats.

The flight to San Francisco was smooth, and I spent my 3 hour layover talking to a Marine Captain from Ponchatoula, LA about froggin', spearing catfish, John Travolta, realistic combat practice zones and organic farming. He showed me pictures of some bullfrogs and catfish on his iPhone...

Unfortunately, during my layover at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, TX- I ran into a bit of trouble. First of all, that airport is terribly designed and the employees working the Continental Express station in terminal A (yes Sherrie and Dee I am talking about you!) were awful. I don't even feel bad saying it because they were just straight up MEAN to every passenger. I am all for people not taking their jobs too seriously, but a straight up lack of caring just gets my goat.

I digress... other adventures at the George Bush airport included me getting my mason jar confiscated, continually harassing any Delta employee I could find because my flight info wasn't listed on the departure board, and lots of aimless wandering.

Now I am surely almost to Iowa, where I will enjoy the rehearsal dinner and farm party to follow, try not to break both my ankles wearing my pretty shoes tomorrow and welcome new wonderful people into our family. I also heard a rumor that the lightning bugs were out, so life is looking pretty darn good from here.

Jersey Cowgirl

Last week before my new job orientation I stopped at my friend Sam's house to hang out. While we were sitting in the kitchen drinking coffee- I suggested he buy a donkey so he could ride into town. After we talked about donkeys and how cool and pretty they are, Sam suggested that he should just ride his cow, Wanda, into town. yes. He offered to give me a demonstration on the rideability of Wanda.

He grabbed a loaf of day old bread to reward her, and we slogged out to the field. Wanda was looking particularly golden and glorious on this day, and she ran over to greet Sam and I. Sam gave her a little nibble of the bread and then legged up. He then gave me the bun to taunt her along so she could get used to following bread, so he could eventually rig up a system to string her along.

Since he didn't have the proper tools, it was up to me to taunt Wanda with the bread and lead her along the field. Within about 5 seconds she was eating the whole loaf of bread and I was geeking out because she licked my hand.

Next it was my turn to cowgirl up. I had to flop up on Wanda's back and then swing my leg up. It took a few attempts, and it wasn't pretty. Then Sam decided to lead her towards the house... She watched him walk away for a bit and then TOOK OFF! She was running through the cow shit filled field and it was scary. I was thinking over and over again how I was going to fall off and re-break my arm or have to go to my job orientation covered in cow poo. After I let my initial fears go, I was still scared but the thrill of riding a Jersey cow set in. It was super fun... and when I showed up at my job orientation covered in cow hair and with cow shit on my boots, I think it went unnoticed because of my excited glow that one can only get from riding a half-ton animal bareback.




Wanda.

Onion Plantin' Fool.

Actually this machine is quite the opposite of hillbilly-ism. It is pretty cush as far as transplanting goes. When you are planting about 100,000 onions- it makes a difference. trust me.

I spent about 7 hours on one of them there contraptions yesterday planting kale, lettuce, artichokes, chard, broccoli and onions. lots of crybabies that will be coming to a supermarket near you in a few months.

Nothing really funny or interesting of note happened. But I liked this picture, and if you can imagine my head on that mulleted mans body, you can picture what I looked like yesterday- and that's kind of fun.

Turkey Listening.

Last week I took a journey back to the heartland, my hometown- Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Along with me on this journey was my neighbor, Niko. Niko is from Southern California, and although he has some hillbilly street cred, I wanted to take him ATV'n, mushroom pickin, and turkey huntin'. It was raining to beat all hell almost the entire time we were there, but we managed to get some shootin' and huntin' in nonetheless.

After some practice with the shotgun, a practice run with the turkey dome, getting our gear ready, (which included Niko putting his foot in a boot that contained a maggot ridden chipmunk carcass) and setting our alarm- we were all set to go turkey hunting the next morning.

My dad roused Niko and I from a too short slumber, and we meandered downstairs where I ate a cheese and pepper deer stick for breakfast, washed down by black coffee. We drove silently to the duck marsh where my pappy had scouted out a turkey roost the week before. Silently trudging through fields and wetlands, we scared deer from their grass beds, caused owls to implore and also somehow managed to piss off a beaver who responded by slapping his tail.

We set up the turkey dome, positioned the turkey decoys and sat down to wait. Every turkey gobble caused us to silently freak out at each other. Laughing and general looks of excitement caused the morning to be even more magical.

Eventually we heard them come down from their roost, which unfortunately was on the other side of the creek. After trying to coax them over to our side with pro turkey calling techniques, we heard them getting farther and farther away. We were out-turkeyed on the killing front, but I think we still came out ahead. We were up at animal time- listening to all of the birds singing, beaver tails slapping, and dew being put away.

To console ourselves, we went to the local diner for breakfast. Even though we were the only customers clad head to toe in camo- we hardly got a second look. Thanks Iowa for letting my hillbilly heart sing.