it's here...

It’s that time of year! I got my Murray McMurray Hatchery catalog in the mail this week and almost every night I’ve been paging through it. Ladies and gentlemen, this is dangerous indeed. To give a poultry lover a book with pictures of goslings and ducklings and tell her they are only a few dollars each…Come February baby chicks arrive from all over the nation into farmhouses across America from hatcheries like this. I don’t plan on making any big orders, but I might get a trio of a heritage breed and sell them at the county fair like I did with the silkies. I have ordered from these guys in the past, it’s where Mindy, one of my Red Star Hens comes from and she came in the mail in a little carrying case healthy, gorgeous, and laid an egg a day all summer long! If you’d like to consider a small backyard flock McMurray has everything you need from chicks to coops to laying nests. If you just want to browse, get this catalog and look at the crazy array of chickens available to the public, check out the site below.

www.mcmurrayhatchery.com

eat pie it's 2008!

Just in from my week long Christmas vacation in Palmerton, Pennsylvania. While I’d like to think that people wanted to see me while I was home, the real star of the week was my apple pie. I made four of them while staying at my folks house. All of them were eaten plate clean. One that I baked at 2 Am for the boys was finished in six minutes by Johnny, Marcus and Ajay. That’s a personal record. Here’s my recipe. You can cheat and buy the Pillsbury crusts in your grocers refrigerated section. I find they are the easiest for slicing into lattice for braiding the top. (that's a homemade crust though in the picture, and it's not candied like you should, just a heads up)

Idaho Apple Pie

To make the filling, son!

3 braeburn apples, pealed and diced
1 stick of sweet cream salted butter (melted)
2 teaspoons of cinnamon
2 tablespoons flour
1-2 cups of powdered sugar

mix these all together. Place in piecrust. Cover with another crust or braided section if you’re feeling fancy. If you do use a solid pie crust, make sure to cut five slits from the center to the edges so that baby can breathe. Before shoving in the oven, melt some more butter in a mug. Add some cinnamon and granulated sugar and make a paste. Brush the candy butter topping over the crust. This is crucial to the pies awesomeness. Bake at 360 for 40 minutes or until crust looks browned and crispy. Enjoy enjoy.