Recipe: roasted chicken & homemade chicken stock

One of the greatest benefits to raising the beautiful, natural, delicious food here at Wishful Acres Farm is EATING IT!!!

This delicious chicken was raised here. To cook, I layed it breast-up in a pan, sprinkled it with garlic powder, salt, and pepper. Then I poured about an inch of water in the bottom of the pan and cooked it in a 350 degree oven for 1 hour. Delicious!

After we eat the meat, I'll transfer the carcass to the stock pot. I'll add about 2 gallons of water and bring to a boil. Then I'll reduce to a simmer for at least an hour. That's homemade stock, and it freezes easily for your homemade soups all winter long (banish the headcolds!).

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And they're out! Meat chickens moved outside onto pasture!

The meat chickens are now old enough to move onto pasture! We moved them out of their brooder room and into the great outdoors today. These free-range chickens should be ready for butchering by July for our customers!
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Meat chickens have arrived!

The first flock of meat chicks is here! 100 meat-variety chickens to be raised free-range for our customers. This first flock will be ready for purchase in about 8 weeks.

Not seen in 99% of kitchens: free-range chicken fat!

You may not recognize this substance! It's something 99% of the American population has never seen before. This cup holds chicken fat from one of our free-range chickens. Do you notice the color? This bright yellow fat is one of the many, many differences between factory-farmed raised chickens, and our free-range chickens.  The color indicates the healthiness of this fat & it's delicious flavor.  I've read many times that the fat on pastured animals is unsaturated.  This makes it so much more healthy than the white, saturated, flavorless fat you'll see on a grocery store chicken.  In fact, the yellow fat on our chickens can be seen under it's skin, just by looking at it before & during cooking. 

This fat came from one of our stewing hens.  We butchered a dozen of our retired egg-laying hens last fall for our own use. A stewing hen, being an older chicken, has the most flavorful meat, but it's tough meat. It also makes the most delicious chicken stock for soups. So, this chicken was tossed whole into a big pot of water & boiled for a few hours, cooking the meat for tenderness & making stock at the same time.

After cooling the whole pot of chicken stock overnight in the fridge, this beautiful yellow fat was skimmed off the surface. I'll use it to saute veggies in, instead of olive oil.


The meat chickens we'll be raising on our farm for customers this summer will be "broilers" - meaning young, tender chicken meat.  They won't be the "stewing hens" I mentioned above.  However, the chickens will still feature this beautiful, delicious, healthier yellow fat because the meat chickens will be raised with access to the outdoors, just like our egg-laying chickens.  So, you'll be able to enjoy the tender meat and still get the yellow fat.  Just don't drink the fat!  :-)  Mistakes have been made upon seeing a cup of beautiful, bright yellow substance in a refrigerator!  (Luckily that mistake hasn't been made here at our farm... yet.)

Enjoy life.... eat delicious!

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