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fire in fireplace

Diet by addition: Healing, hope, breakfast by the fire

  • January 6, 2021January 6, 2021
  • by Suzanne Nelson Karreman

“There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace.”

Aldo Leopold, “A Sand County Almanac”

I think about the above quote a lot, even though keeping our home fire burning in the winter does more for my soul than for frigid finger tips, as it’s not set up to really heat our home (although I certainly wish it was…). I have also been thinking a lot about adding things to my diet rather than subtracting them. I’ve been calling it “diet by addition,” and I’ve decided that I’m going to eat eggs, lamb or beef as the center of every meal. Sounds silly for a livestock farmer to say this, but I wasn’t doing this despite the food abundance in which I live. It’s been life-changing.

This morning’s breakfast, 5a. Reverence Farms’ eggs (2 whole, 1 extra yoke), spinach from Community Greens (get yours at the Saxapahaw General Store), Carolina Moon cheese from Chapel Hill Creamery, scallions from Dinner Bell Farm, mushrooms that I pre-cook weekly from my Haw River Mushrooms CSA (one of my favorite investments I make annually in my health), and butter that I made myself.

(YES! Eggs are back in stock and on sale!)

One of my most highly prized skills is that I can flip an omelet in a stainless steel pan. Get the butter adequate and the temperature just right, and a toxin-free nonstick pan is not only possible but preferable. I’ll always owe a debt of gratitude to my friend Andrew for teaching me to make a proper omelet. I eat an omelet every. single. day. Just ask my family what happens to my mental and emotional health when I don’t have one… Eggs are incredible.

What if we only ate food from people we knew? What does it meant to really support farms?

While by the fire last night I was watching a live video from Grass Grazed Farm and thought something they said was amazingly right on, and I’m glad someone is saying it: If we want to support farms, we have to eat farm food. This sounds simple, and it is, but they were very clearly articulating why that doesn’t mean going to the farmers market for “onesie-twosies,” a bunch of flowers, a piece of meat and a couple of vegetables. Is that all you are going to eat for a week, really? Where are the rest of your meals coming from? They spoke about when they are out of bacon, they don’t eat bacon. Radically simple concepts, but totally transformative.

How to talk to a farmer? Ask her what she needs to move and learn to cook it.

I remember reading something Joel Salatin wrote years ago in one of his books about how radically different our landscape would be if we bought most/all of the food that we eat from farmers. That means, just for my little family of three, that we buy carrots, celery, sweet potatoes, etc by the bushel full. It means we need an extra fridge in the basement just for produce. (I just picked one up another one on Craigslist last month for 50 bucks.)

It also means that for every single meal, I can share with Hue and Vivian every single ingredient and it’s source. It means we eat seasonally not because it’s trendy, but because it’s what our friends are harvesting right now. It means that when the peaches are coming off the tree, we better get preserving, because the harvest will last only a week or two. And when we have that peach jam later in the year, we are going to eat it in moderation. Why? Because it’s limited and we know what went into making it. When it’s out, it’s out.

Diet by addition makes life deeply satisfying

I have started to call it “diet by addition,” and what I mean is this: if I fill our plates and mugs (1-2 pints of bone stock per day is part of this) with nutrient-dense food three meals a day, and source 90+% of our diet locally, I can eat all the snacks and have my little cheats to my heart’s content and still stay in the same belt loop. Why? Because my body and soul are satisfied enough to not want much of those things. It’s not the discipline of saying no so much as the much easier discipline of saying yes to the right things.

Have you considered how being deeply satisfied with your food affects your health?

bone stock in mason jars

How to make bone stock

  • December 29, 2020December 29, 2020
  • by Suzanne Nelson Karreman

Stock is the foundation of all that is good and holy and I can feel worn down, depressed, grumpy and out of every form of energy, and I can have some homemade stock and immediately I feel like a new person again.

We always have soup in the freezer and fresh stock in the fridge, always. I make it a point to at least drink a pint of salted, warm stock every day day. It’s a great pre-breakfast pick-me-up when the day starts earlier than breakfast, or an afternoon snack, or a late, late dinner or a tonic after I’ve eaten junk food to immediately set me right. I really believe that well-made stock could transform the world.

Everyone should know how to make stock. It’s up there with balancing a checkbook, knowing how important it is to vote, riding a bicycle and brushing one’s teeth in life importance, in my book. It’s incredibly healing to the gut, the seat of the immune system. Giving stock in the form of homemade soup is a wonderful way of being neighborly. Chicken soup really is for the soul.

A friend got this mug for me as gag gift and I love the orange color on the inside. See my stock quaffing in the cold, winter air?!

Whenever we cook a chicken or turkey, I aways use the bones to make stock. Sometimes I’ll roast chicken backs or turkey necks specifically to make stock, but oftentimes the stock parts are the byproduct of other endeavors (sometimes roasting poultry to make soup). Beef stock usually is a separate affair that I roast marrow and soup bones for specifically, but the principles are the same. It’s a simple process that adapts well to whatever you have on hand.

I used to make stock by simmering several birds worth of bones in my 25-quart stockpot for a day or more, but these days my 8-quart Instant Pot is much less fuss (and more energy-efficient to run for 24+ hours than our gas range, plus the very real fire safety issues of running too low on water if you neglect the pot for too long).

Whether you use your Instant Pot, crock pot or a pot on your stove, the important thing is just to make bone stock!

The bones of one chicken work perfectly in the 8-quart model. When I make turkey stock from the carcass, I usually do it in two batches. One 2.5-lb bag of chicken backs and a package of feet (I always add a package of feet…) makes one batch. Each batch makes about a gallon of stock, which I store in 1/2-gallon mason jars in the fridge. We easily consume a gallon of stock a week, both as a hot beverage and in soups and braises. If you are going to freeze in glass, do so in pint containers with 3/4″ gap from the top and the wide-mouth containers work best. Any other sizes will crack in the freezer.

No truly worthy stock with ample gelatin for your tired bones and soon-to-be radiant skin can be made without feet. Double bonus if you use turkey feet, as they are like adding dinosaur bones to your pot and are full of nutrients. Chicken feet are also amazing.

Roasting the bones in advance isn’t absolutely necessary, but it will make the flavor much better, and then you will have pan drippings, which are a sine qua non of good stock in my book. If you are using a chicken carcass, the bones are already roasted, and definitely save every bit of those drippings!

Pan drippings are your friend in stock

To get all the precious browned bits off the roasting pan (you want to do this), put a little water in the pan and heat up on the stove until you can dislodge the last bit of juices and bits with a wooden spoon. Add this flavor-water to your stock pot.

Rinse the feet well and add them to your stock pot. Add 2 T. of organic apple cider vinegar, 1+ T. of real salt and enough water to reach within 1.5″-2″ of the top of the pot. Ideally, this mixture of bones, salt, water and vinegar would sit unheated for 30 min. The acidified water begins the process of extracting the minerals from the bones. Sometimes I don’t have time for that. It’s more important to make stock at all than to make perfect stock!

Simmer the pot of stock parts (do not boil) for 12+ hours, but definitely at least 5-6 hours. I usually set my slow-cook setting for 20 hours, with the keep-warm setting on after that, which buys me 10 more hours before I strain the stock. (The 140 degrees maintained in that setting is more than enough to keep extracting goodness out of the bones for your stock, and it’s also a food-safe temperature to hold poultry.)

These regular-mouth jars are more apt to crack in the freezer in my experience, so I often use wide-mouth jars. A cracked jar can of stock can be rescued with a fine-mesh strainer.

Upping your game with aromatics

If you are really on your game, add a couple of carrots and a couple of sticks of celery and a yellow onion, peeled and quartered, to the pot anytime within the last 2-4 hours of cooking. Sometimes I don’t do this, and the stock will just not be as aromatic. For bonus points, add parsley stems (up to a bunch of parsley) to the stock 30-60 min before completion. There’s lots of minerals in parsley and it adds great flavor. I rarely get to do this, but when I do it’s amazing. Adding vegetables too early in the process will create off flavors, and the long cooking times are necessary to get all the gelatin out of the bones.

I use a cone shaped fine-mesh strainer to strain the stock, but you can use anything you have. Even just on the keep-warm setting, the liquid in your pot will be hot enough to crack a glass (ask me how I know!) if the ambient temperature is sufficiently cold, so I usually strain into a large bowl and then ladle into the mason jars with my indispensable wide-mouth funnel. (Splurge and get a stainless steel one. I use it almost every day.)

Remember: it’s more important to make good stock than to make perfect stock. Just make stock!

A word about pressure cooking

The most flavorful stock I’ve ever had was made with the pressure cook “stock” setting on my Instant Pot, and it’s done in an hour or two, but there’s a lot to be cautioned about this approach, as many stipulate that it destroys nutrients. I will say that the stocks I’ve made this way had more gelatin, so who knows. There is not a lot of good science on the subject. My general rule of thumb is that if my grandmother didn’t have it in her kitchen, I best use the precautionary principle when deciding whether a particular ingredient, tool or method belongs in my kitchen, so most of the time I just use the “slow cook” setting, which is like a long simmering pot on the fire. The bonus with this approach is that I can fill the pot past the pressure cook line and get another quart of stock in the process.

Scenes from a real kitchen: turkey stock x 2 and chicken stock in 1/2-gallon mason jars with simple masking tape for labels. (Lacto-fermented carrots and ‘kraut on the right.)

Drink your stock!

Stock isn’t just for soup anymore. Every morning I drink a pint of heated, additionally salted stock poured over a teaspoon of minced ginger (one of the only prepared foods that I buy because it’s so gingery!) and a tablespoon of coconut oil. This tonic helps me think clearly and gives me nourishment to head to the barn before breakfast.

A Chicken Can Feed Your Family for a Week…Here’s…

  • April 26, 2020May 14, 2020
  • by Suzanne Nelson Karreman

We are continuing our $1/lb off sale on chickens this week to demonstrate something that is vital for survival:
Yes, a chicken can feed your family for a week. 

 Here’s how it works: I usually get a 6-7lb chicken for this kind of adventure, but certainly a 5-5.5lb bird will go the distance. Defrost the chicken in your fridge for a few days or in cold water for a few hours. 

Dinner one:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Remove chicken from bag, rinse (I know this isn’t textbook, but I like to) and dry with paper towels. Compost the paper towels. Liberally salt and pepper the bird, inside and out. Cook in roasting pan until brown, about 15 min, then turn down oven to 375 degrees and continue to cook until the deepest part of the breast temps at 165 degrees (or 145 degrees for 8 min, which is superior), without touching the thermometer to the bone. Make LOTS of veggies and sides, including a starch, so that the chicken isn’t consumed all in one evening… We usually have sweet potatoes and braised collards or kale. Do not discard a single bit of pan drippings, which is a near-capital offense in my kitchen… Yes, 4-5 ounces of REAL chicken is satisfying with sufficient vegetables/rice/potatoes. Definitely eat the wings this night — and the meat around the tail if you are into the flavor. (One option to help with portion control is to cut off the leg quarters before you cook the birds and save those for a second night.)

Sometime before the next meal: pick all of the chicken off the bones and put in a separate container. When you have time, take the pan drippings (YouTube: “deglaze a pan”), chicken bones and a bag of chicken feet (the resulting gelatin is THE best for you) into your pressure cooker or stockpot with a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar, a couple of carrots, a couple of pieces of celery and a whole onion peeled and quartered, along with 1 tablespoon of real salt and a big pinch of pepper. Add enough water to cover everything and pressure cook for 45 min or low/slow on the stovetop for 12+ hours (check the water level on the stove! and don’t go past a simmer). Strain stock. Compost the parts. (Yes, you can compost animal bones, just cover them with a lot of leaves, woodchips or sawdust.)

When I’m tired I throw the whole pan of chicken bones and unfinished chicken in the fridge and deal with it the next morning while my tea is brewing… Midweek lesson: cook when you aren’t hungry. I am always working on something in the kitchen, whether I have 5 or 30 min. Cooking is part of life! 

Meal two (if you saved the leg Qs raw):

Cut the leg between the thigh and the drumstick and make four pieces. Voila, another meal. This recipe calls for a whole chicken, but the legs will do mighty fine.  

Meal three:

Use some of the breast meat to make roast chicken burgers. Get some of Emily’s challah bread to make buns. Or ask us to sell you a few buns from Chicken Bridge Bakery. Yes, we have rendered bacon fat! Haw River Mushrooms (available for two-day order from our website) could shine here even without chicken. 

Meal four:

You’ve hit the high notes three nights in a row, now it’s time for some comfort food. One-pan easy chicken Alfredo pasta. This dish is easily extended with far less chicken than recipe instructs. 

Meal five: 

Time for soup. You splurged last night with cheese and pasta. Now it’s time to nourish yourself. I usually go old-school with mirepoix (chopped and sautéed carrots, celery and onion, in butter), whatever root vegetables or braising greens I have (same preparation) and add fresh or dried rosemary, thyme and herbs de Provence and call it done (the routine of this means I can “staff out” prep to my husband and daughter while I feed the critters). For the more adventurous among you, I offer chicken curry soup. 

Meal six: 

Chicken salad. Mine is classic, light on the mayo, heavier on the dijon and chopped celery, parsley, salt, pepper and a tiny splash of lemon juice, but sometimes just good-quality mayo (we use one with only avocado oil), salt and pepper is what you’ve got… Salad. Sourdough. 

Meal seven:

Vivian Howard’s mom’s chicken and rice. Skip the first paragraph of the recipe and all the ingredients except the rice. Just take whatever chicken you have left and the second half of your stock (you’ll need at least a quart and a half, click here if you need extra stock parts) and add the rice and go. (You’ve already cooked the chicken and made the stock.) The real-deal way to make this is with one of our stew hens. It’s change-your-life good. 

There, you’ve now demonstrated that you can renew yourself instead of merely surviving. Cooking is empowering. It’s worth messing up at first. “Eat your losses” was a tangible reality before it was a business term… Just DO IT. There are lots of small details I left out. The web is full of good cooking instruction and it’s near sure-fire in its effectiveness (unlike crackpot Covid protocols…) Ask Emily or Brack when you are in the farm store. They are both superb cooks, and happy to help your introductory culinary adventures. Much has been written on this subject of stretching a chicken for a week…

p.s. if you liked the photo above, you can purchase it from the artist here. 
p.p.s. I’d love a print for my office (kidding, mostly…)

Recent Posts

  • The difference between bad and great grass-fed beef
  • Tough times ahead. Get to know your food.
  • Why is it so important to feed organic feed? Isn’t non-GMO almost as good?
  • Diet by addition: Healing, hope, breakfast by the fire
  • How to make bone stock

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