March 10, 2015
Recipes - All About - Tried and Tested, Recipes - Mushrooms, Seen and Done, Stuff - interesting uncategorised, Sustainable Back Yard, Vegetables - All About, Vegetables - Growing, Vegetables - Recipes
Back Yard Farmer - Dunedin

2015-03-11- Puff Ball 1 2015-03-11- Puff Ball 2 2015-03-11- Puff Ball 4 2015-03-11- Puff Ball 3

We are so privileged that Puffball Mushrooms are growing in our friend’s garden across the road, and even more privileged that they are prepared to to share it with us for a MUSHROOM FEAST every year. So it was with great excitement that they called and announced that the puffballs are up. We went to take photographs today and will harvest them tomorrow for the feast in the evening. We shall report on recipes and results the day after tomorrow!!! How good can life be?

Fridge Pickings and a Gift of Beans makes Lunch

The kids went away on holiday and we were told to remove all the perishables from their fridge. We found spring onions, mushrooms, small tomatoes and lemons. Great! That sounds like lunch already, but when we got home the neighbour had left us some freshly harvested beans. I augmented everything with fresh chili and a tiny garlic bulb from the garden, picked some parsley, and this was the lunch made by the Never Trow Out Anything maniac in the kitchen. A bit of lemon went into a gin and tonic for Mrs BYF, and the rest was squeezed over the peeled apples (from the tree at the back door) for the apple crumble which is now in the oven ! The rustic bread and salami was made by me. Wash it all down with a glass of great red home brew and ENJOY!!

HARD TIMES !!

Lunch today

Dairy prices are down, venison keeps falling, electricity is up and the courier companies are screwing us left, right and center, so here at Back Yard Farmer we are not wasting anything. We have worked out using almost everything from the garden and are now working on using every part of the back yard chickens, starting with what we always discarded, the feet. I have often eaten chicken feet, mostly in some Asian restaurant, and the very best I had was on a recent business trip to Qingdao, China (along with an assortment of scorpions, tasty bugs and larvae like things – the food of the future). Strange how Chinese food does not taste as good in restaurants outside China. The same goes for Italian food, I suppose, unless one cooks oneself, so, here is Mrs BYF’s version of chicken feet – delicious although the cook was a bit squeamish to start off with.

Zampe di Gallina

Chicken Feet Arrabiata (Arrabiata means angry – so this is quite hot)

4 chicken wings or any other part of the chicken that is not dry white meat, skin on

6 to 8 chicken feet, nails removed (I had to do that myself, Mrs BYF baulked)

1 piece of fresh ginger just bigger than a thumb finely chopped

4 cloves of garlic finely chopped

1 large red chilli or as much as you can take, finely chopped

1 litre of chicken stock

small handful of parsley and sage finely chopped

4 table spoons of olive oil

1 cup of wine, red or white

Pre heat the oven to 200 deg

Use a cast iron pot with a close fitting lid, big enough to take all the chicken. Heat a tablespoon of oil in the pot and brown the chicken pieces well on all sides. Remove and add the feet, cook on medium high for a few minutes. Remove the feet. Add the rest of the olive oil to the pot and add the chilli and garlic. Cook until the garlic is soft but not coloured. deglase the pot with the wine, cook until the wine bubbles. Add the chicken, feet and all to the pot, and cover the chicken with the stock. Bring to the boil on the stove, cover the pot with the lid and place the pot in the oven. Cook for 3 hours, twenty minutes before serving, add the parsley and sage. Eat with polenta.

Do not forget to enjoy this dish with lots of red wine! ENJOY!