chicken

The Mountains Are Calling: Apple and Thyme Chicken

September 9, 2011 by KerryAnn 5 Comments

The mountains are calling and I ~~must go~~ already went.

Years ago, before children and health problems, two happy newly-married Fosters went on a trip to the mountains. We instantly fell in love. With the mountains, that is. We were already in love with each other. It created a longing in both of us to live in The Blue Ridge. Just about every vacation we took was to the mountains of Western North Carolina.

In 2007, during the worst of my health struggles, we had eight days to find a new place to live, pack and move across the state to the Asheville area when my husband went through a lay-off and found another job. We found a little piece of a Blue Ridge mountain to call home.

Growing up in FL, I never felt like I was at ‘home,’ a place where I would be content to stay until I died. A place I felt like I truly belonged. After marrying and moving to North Carolina, I never felt at home in the Raleigh area or in Mount Olive. I felt like our stays there were temporary. The day I opened the door and walked into this house, I finally felt at home. If I die here, I will be happy with that.

Now, we have no desire to leave the area when we vacation. We stay local, on the Blue Ridge Parkway. There are many wonderful shops and activities within a short drive from home. And you can’t beat the scenery, especially during the Fall. Driving The Blue Ridge Parkway in the Fall is a treat of which I will never grow tired.

Thursday, our homeschool group took a field trip to The Orchard at Altapass, an apple orchard on The Blue Ridge Parkway. We decided that hubby would take a vacation day and we would go to the Orchard, then he surprised us with a trip to The Soap Shed and the Rio Doce Mine afterwards.

Potato Soup

September 13, 2010 by KerryAnn Leave a Comment

Winter is coming.

A couple of weeks ago, I stood at my kitchen window in the early morning. Looking through the fog, I saw one single, yellowed leaf float down from the trees. My throat tightened. Last week in the same early morning time at my sink, I saw several more fall, dancing gracefully. Friday, I crested the steep hill on my road to see the Appalachians displaying change visible from a great distance. Today, I see the trees across the street are turning. Red and yellow. This morning, I had to grab a robe when I got up. The kids complained their feet were cold on the wooden floors. Friends are telling me the Blue Ridge Parkway, not far from home, already has yellows, oranges and reds beautifully visible.

Winter is coming. Soon. [Read more…] about Potato Soup

Chicken Mole

January 19, 2011 by KerryAnn Leave a Comment

This recipe was requested over on the CTF Facebook page. If you use Facebook, come over over and join us. I post daily reminders about thawing meats, soaking grains and planning your meals. It’s great if you’re in a meal-cooking rut or need some inspiration, because many folks post what they’re fixing for meals and snacks, too. I mentioned testing a chicken mole recipe and someone asked me to post it.

Chicken Mole
From the Menu Mailer
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Good, Better, Best- Choosing Meats

March 8, 2011 by KerryAnn 1 Comment

As I stated with my first post in this series, I fully recognize that some of you have very tight budgets or only have access to mega-marts due to your locations. Others will have the funds and availability to choose the best of the best. Either way, this post isn’t to condemn someone who can’t pick the best of every option, it is to help you make the best decision you can with what you have, where you are.

This week’s installment is on choosing meats. This post is to help you decide what is the best option for your budget. This posting is my opinion, and after research, you might reach a different conclusion. If you do, please comment and share what you found and your reasoning. I’m always open to changing my opinion and updating this post if new or different information comes along.

The Choices

Best– Locally grown, 100% pastured, organic or ‘not-certified but organic practice’

Better– 100% pastured, organic or ‘not-certified but organic practice’ [Read more…] about Good, Better, Best- Choosing Meats

Gardening Season is Upon Us

May 13, 2010 by KerryAnn Leave a Comment

I haven’t blogged much in the last month because we have been working hard to get our raised garden beds built and extended onto some new ground. We are effectively trying to double our vegetable garden space despite being limited by the steep topography and shade from all of the woods. Once we are done, we will put in some new beds in a different area of the yard for the herbs and perennial plants. We also had an extended visit from my grandparents and my grandmother came down with shingles while they were here. That sent me into a tizzy of work, trying to get ready with extra food cooked and the chores and gardening done ahead in case the kids caught chicken pox from her. Their 14-day incubation period ended on Wednesday and they show no symptoms, so I assume they did not catch it from her. We will still continue to watch them until this coming Wednesday, just in case. So the last few weeks have been very busy but very productive.

Living in Western NC, our last frost date is mid-April but we don’t put out the warm weather vegetables until Mother’s Day weekend or after. This past weekend was too cool to plant out (under 55 degrees at night) and The Farmer’s Almanac lists today and tomorrow as the favorable days to get the hot weather plants into the ground. So I will spend tomorrow trying to break the new ground and get the grass/weeds up, finish spreading the 15 cubic yards of topsoil into the new raised beds, amending with azomite and greensand and then transplanting the plants out that were hardened off earlier this week.

I will be transplanting tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, winter and summer squash, zucchini, lettuces, melons, hibiscus and a good number of herbs. We will also be putting beans, cowpeas, carrots, lettuce and okra into the ground. None of my beets sprouted, so we will try those again later in the year. Once things are transplanted, the weeding, feeding and soil work on a large scale begins. We also have 5 roosters and a few hens to butcher soon and need to get the outside equipment set up for that. Since next Saturday afternoon is taken up with another scheduled activity, I hope we can accomplish culling the flock next Friday and Saturday morning, as Jeff normally gets off in the afternoon on Fridays.

On the personal front, my husband was able to get a new job in April. He was laid off one year ago today. Eleven months of unemployment was very difficult and the downturn in the economy has greatly affected us. I am grateful that the long period of unemployment is over and that God provided Jeff with a job at a company where he is happy and fits in well. The last year was a good opportunity to fine-tune my penny pinching endeavors and it helped me to weed through some strategies that, while they work, they take up too much time in comparison to the money they save to be useful to me on a regular basis.

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KerryAnn Foster runs Cooking Traditional Foods, the longest running Traditional Foods Menu Mailer on the internet. KerryAnn has over nine years of traditional foods experience and is a former Weston A. Price Foundation chapter leader. Founded in 2005, CTF helps you feed your family nourishing foods they will love. Each mailer contains one soup, five dinners, one breakfast, on dessert and extras. You can learn more about our Menu Mailers at the CTF website. For a free sample Menu Mailer, join our mailing list. You can also join our forum to chat with other traditional foodists and learn more.

Cheap Heat

February 8, 2010 by KerryAnn Leave a Comment

The kids and I survived the big storm last weekend while Jeff was gone, without incident. We then had a storm that was mostly ice this weekend that took out our power for a few hours and the phone/internet for two days. We’re expecting another mild storm beginning Tuesday with sleet and snow. We just can’t catch a break with the weather and the whole Eastern Seaboard is in the same boat with some spots currently having 3 feet of snow. We still have not had an opportunity to clear the garden or re-do the chicken coop shavings thanks to this incredibly wet weather. Locally there have been rock slides and other such assorted nastiness from ground that is too wet. The river by our house is amazingly high but not flooding. Yet. This is the highest we’ve ever seen the river, and we still have more rain, sleet and snow coming this week.

This week we will use the last of the wood we had purchased to heat our home through the winter. This winter has been so difficult that many are saying they’re in the same situation. We’re having trouble finding anyone to deliver firewood since so many other people are also trying to purchase more. In a normal winter we’d go through approximately three-and-a-half full cords of wood (as opposed to a face cord) from September to April and this year we’ll likely go through about five cords by the time we can stop using the fireplace at night. The type of wood you purchase determines how long a cord will last you, as certain types burn longer and hotter than others. This chart tells you how much heat each type of wood puts out.

Considerations and Questions

Be sure you know the difference between a full cord (4’x4’x8′) and a face cord (4′ high x 8′ long x varying lengths of pieces) and the average price of different types of woods before you begin calling people who are advertising wood in the local paper or places like Craig’s List. Know the maximum length of the wood pieces your stove can accommodate- 18 inches is standard. Be sure to ask how long the wood has been seasoned– you don’t want wood that has been seasoned less than eight months to a year for the maximum heat output and minimal creosote production. Wood that isn’t seasoned can cause a fire risk due to creosote build-up in the chimney. Kiln drying can shorten the amount of seasoning time needed.

We prefer to avoid poplar as the bulk of the load because it produces more ash than other woods for less heat output. Ash output is a consideration to stretch the time between cleaning out the ashes to help us time our fires so we can clean out the box when it isn’t as cold of a day. Poplar is easier to light, so we do use some of it for starting a fire with fatlighter. Loads of mixed types of wood will be cheaper than all one type. Another thing to consider in the price is if they stack the wood on delivery and if they charge for delivery. Most delivery men just dump it in your driveway and will charge an additional fee to stack it for you. You can get a discount if you pick it up yourself but we have found that the price difference isn’t worth the hours of work, especially when you figure in the cost of the gasoline. Ask around to people you know about what the local prices are for different types of wood to have an idea of what is reasonable before agreeing on delivery.

Savings

We keep our house at 60 degrees with the thermostat and heat the living area with the wood heater. I desperately hate heat pumps for a variety of reasons (unless you live in Florida), but because we do not have the correct R value and installation of insulation in our walls we can not heat our house exclusively with wood. Our power bill runs about $65-100 a month during the winter (depending on how much I use the dryer) as I am extremely careful with our energy usage. During the month of December, we babysat my parent’s parrots and raised the thermostat to 65 degrees and kept the living room around 75 degrees using the fireplace. Our power bill went up about $130 for that colder than average month for the extra five degrees. Considering one cord of non-dense wood costs about $130 here, the use of firewood can be a significant cost savings if you are able to drop your thermostat while burning the wood.

During the December power outage, we were able to keep the living area 10-15 degrees warmer than the back of the house and over 20 degrees warmer than the basement thanks to to the wood heater by hanging a blanket in the hallway to trap the heat in the living room and using a three-blade ecofan my husband had purchased on clearance to push the rising heat into the room.

Finally, consider that depending of the type of wood heater you have, you might be able to heat water/leftovers or cook on top as an additional form of savings. You might be able to heat up a soup for lunch or if you have one that can accommodate a modified toaster box or a camp/stove top oven, even bake on top of your wood heater.

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