This is a trial run to see how much I enjoy running a CSA. We are asking for a four-month commitment. Every month, you’ll come to pick up your share at our farm. You share will consist of 1 incredibly delicious pasture-raised chicken, five pounds of our grass fed beef and five pounds of our forest-finished pork.

We are asking $440 for all of this yummy stuff. The price works out to around $7.33 per pound, which if I do say so, is a bargain.

We’re pretty excited about the idea of a meat CSA and hope that you are, too.

Again, here is the brochure. There’s an order form in there. Thanks for looking!

Kosher Kings at 5 days old

The Look

And, as a bonus, a picture of our turkeys.

Handsome Fellow

The one in the center is a fine looking Narragansett. To his left is a Blue Slate. You can see the tail feathers of a Bourbon Red in the lower lefthand corner.

Big Red

Here are Thing one and Thing Two. Both are crosses between Red Wattle and Large Black.

Things One and Two

Here are our other sows, Ruby and Olive. Olive is a Berkshire and Ruby is a Tamworth.

Ruby

Olive

We also have 240 baby chicks, our next batch of meat birds. These are Kosher Kings and are so far doing very well. I’ll put up some pictures of them very soon.

Take the chicken and cut out the backbone. I have found that a good pair of poultry shears or kitchen scissors works very well. Save the back for stock. Flatten the chicken out and rub both sides with this paste:

1 teaspoon lemon juice

1 tablespoon ground black pepper

1 tablespoon salt

some oregano and some thyme

Heat up your grill and keep it with a low flame. Put the bird on the grill, skin side up. After about 15 minutes, flip it and cook it until a probe thermometer inserted in the breast or thigh reads 155. Remove the chicken from the grill and cover it loosely with aluminum foil. Wait 5-10 minutes. Eat. It’s very easy, very tasty and you don’t need to heat up your kitchen.

Young Turkeys, about four days old

Our turkeys are a little less than two weeks old and are doing very well. We are raising 150 birds this year and are about to start taking deposits for them. We are asking for $20 per bird. We expect them to dress out in the neighborhood of 12-20 pounds. The cost is currently $7 per pound. If there is a significant increase in the price of feed, we may have to adjust that price.

In the next few days, I hope to have a form on here which you can fill out to reserve a Thanksgiving bird. Until then, you can just come see me at any of the farmer’s markets at which I sell.

Dry Rub:

1 T Salt

1 T Black Pepper

1 t Cumin

1 t Tumeric

1 t Zaatar

Mix up the spices and rub them all over a couple of nice chops. Heat one half of your grill on high. Sear the chops for one minute on each side. Move them to the other side of the grill and cook them for about eight more minutes or until they are as done as you like them. Eat.

It’s pretty darn good.

1) With the bird breast-side up, cut the leg away from the body. Pull on the leg as you cut and find the hip joint. Cut all the way around the thigh on the back side of the chicken. Once the joint is exposed, crack it and the leg should come right off. Do this with the other leg, too. Set them aside.

2) pull the wings away from the body and cut around the joint. I usually leave a little bit of the breast attached to the wing to make a bigger serving. Once you find the joint, cut through it. I also remove the wing tips and reserve them for stock or give them to a deserving dog.

3) to separate the breast from the back, cut through the ribs on either side with a sharp knife or shears. Make sure to cut close to the backbone or you will lose some good meat. Reserve the back for stock.

4) To split the breast, find the wishbone–it is at the thick end– and scrape it free. Lay the breast skin side down. With a large, sharp knife cut through the breastbone down the middle. Sometimes you may want to quarter the breast. To do this, lay the breast skin side up and cut diagonally through it.

5) Now back to the legs: flex and crack the joint between the drumstick and the thigh. There is a thin layer of fat between these two pieces. If you cut along it they should separate with relative ease.

And now you should have a bunch of chicken parts and some stuff for amazing stock. Get cooking!

These tasty birds will be available at all these fine farmer’s markets.

Yum.

Working on the MPPU

We are one week away from our first processing day of the season. Once again, we will be using the MPPU (Mobile Poultry Processing Unit) this year. The MPPU is a project of the New Entry Sustainable Farming Project (NESFP) and the New England Small Farming Institute (NESFI). Basically, it’s a chicken slaughterhouse on wheels.

I’ll be spending a large part of this coming week making sure we have enough supplies: gloves, aprons, labels, bags, zip ties, knives, food safe plastic buckets, ice, freezer space, and thermometers.