Supper

Tonight we have Teriyaki chicken and cabbage on the menu. The chicken is one of the kids' favorites and the cabbage is mine. The chicken is from the seven roos we inherited as "fillers" for the banties we received in the mail from the hatchery (see July 15, 2010 post). The meat pieces are smaller than what one could buy in the store, but we raised this meat so I know exactly what is actually inside: no solution to "enhance flavor", no hormones, just grass and bugs and sunshine and mountain breezes.

Anywhoo, here's the recipe for Teriyaki chicken: some brown sugar, a slosh of oil and a slosh of soy sauce and a couple of glugs of apple cider vinegar, a sprinkling of ginger and a liberal shake of garlic powder. Place all in the bowel (Did I just write "bowel" again? Dang this nurse brain. I meant "bowl") with the chicken and let soak for 2 hours or so. Then broil until the juices run clear......yummmmm.




This is a picture of cabbage that we are having for supper, too. Cabbage is really easy to start from seed. Get some seed from the grocery store or the hardware store (like Home Depot for those of you who don't have real hardware stores in your town anymore). Place in a cup of dirt and put in a sunny window. Water and watch it sprout. Then when the ice is over (or you think the ice is over) put out in the garden and watch it take off. Of course you have to have really bad weather like we did this past summer-- wet, cold, cloudy and make sure you have a red puppy to dig up the plants so they can be replanted not once but twice (!) in one season. Then you too can have cabbage like this!

I usually boil the cabbage with lots of onions and a sprinkling of fennel seeds. The seeds taste a little like licorice, which I don't really care for. But somehow it works with cabbage. Of course I tell the kids that the seeds are really bugs that just "came-out-of-the-cabbage-while-it-was-cooking" and that they just need to eat the vegetable anyway because that's what the pioneers would do. They used to believe me and slowly eat the cabbage in horror. But now they don't......believe me that is. They still sometimes eat the cabbage with horror.