July, I know.

Stolen image of the delicious.

Where the hell did June go? Anyway, I present to you, Souvlaki. A delicious Greek dish, usually made with pork, but can be made with chicken. It's delicious either way. I advocate grilling skewers of meat over hardwood charcoal, but if you don't have a grill, you can accomplish something similar with a broiler pan. Enjoy!

What you need:
3# pork tenderloin/ chicken breast/ chicken thigh
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup onion, large dice
1 Tbsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cracked pepper

Skewers, usually 8-12 will do.

How you do this:
(1) Cut the meat into approximately 1" cubes
(2) Combine the ingredients in a large non-reactive container (read as: plastic, bowl or bag), marinate overnight-- or two!
(3) Thread onto skewers and then--
(4a) Grill over hardwood charcoal until done or--
(4b) Broil for 15 mins then finish at 350 degrees

Eat!

The coop, complete.

Breathing out, finally. It weighs over 500#, took me over 20 hours of build time, and moving it into position on Lu's lawn required four guys, four logs, and ended up looking like an episode of the History Channel's "How Shit was Done in the Middle Ages" but it is that-- done. I can say without reservation that this is the finest structure I've built to date and I'm happy with 95% of the details. Without further ado, the coop!



A view of the removeable summer window.





Board & batten cedar siding, fully trimmed out, hand-fit mitered door panels.



The nest boxes, facing the door.



The removeable cleanout box.



The hinged chicken door (closed) with cleats for traction.



A rer view of the cedar siding and to give you a sense of scale.



A closeup of the removeable summer window.



I wished she'd have ordered a 6' x 8' instead-- the proportions of the 4' x8' just aren't as pretty.

And that's that.

It's not exactly news but...

...it's busy season in the farm supply business. So, I've been all over the place. And I've spent every other night of the past 3 weeks building on a massive chicken coop project. I took a few pics over the weekend and will post them just as soon as I get them transferred over. How about that?

An apology for Mexican Hobo Stew, via Carnitas.

The other night I was rummaging through the refrigerator looking for something to cook. I came up with turnips, chipotles, pork drippings, sausage, onions, green chili peppers, and cilantro. While independent of each other these ingredients are delicious, combined they make a very strange kind of hobo stew. As an apology for having thrown something together like that, I have for you my recipe for carnitas.

What you need, based on a 3# pork roast; though carnitas are usually made with a much larger roasts 6-10#

-crockpot
-jelly roll pan or roaster pan
-3# pork roast; boston butt, picnic roast, etc.
-1 medium white onion, chopped
-1 bay leaf
-2 tsp. ground cumin
-2 tsp. ground coriander
-1 tsp. dried oregano
-2 cups water

I prefer to toast and grind my own cumin and coriander. If you have a mortar and pestle, you can too. Place the cumin and coriander in a dry skillet and toast over high heat until the spices start to smell fragrant and smoke a little bit. Transfer the spices to the mortar and grind them to medium fine with the pestle. If you don't have a mortar and pestle, you can use a spice grinder, a coffee grinder (don't use it for coffee afterward!), or you can just buy pre-ground spices off the rack.

Combine ingredients in crockpot set to "high" and leave to cook overnight. You may need to get up during the night and turn the roast over once. It depends on whether your crockpot is the roaster-pan type or the soup-pot type. In the morning, lift the roast out of the crockpot and transfer to a jelly roll pan or baking dish large enough to spread the soon-to-be-shredded roast out on. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. While the oven heats up, shred the roast and spread it out evenly in the pan.

Place the pan in the oven and bake for 15-30 minutes. How long you bake it will determine how crispy the meat gets. Your personal tastes will determine doneness.

Eat! Carnitas are usually served as a plate or in tacos with pico de gallo-- a rough dice of equal parts white onion & tomato with a few jalapenos, cilantro, and lime juice-- red or green salsa, pickled carrots or radishes, guacamole, and lime.

Back on track.

Today marked the first time in two weeks that I've made it to the gym at my usual 530 time. Between working and teaching and trying to get some sleep it just hasn't fit in. And I've lost about 10 pounds thanks to all that. So here's to being back at it and getting some weight put back on!

The KFC Doubledown smackdown.

Despite my usual dietary-reservedness, my brother offered to expense some doubledown sandwiches as "travel, dining, and entertainment." I drove to KFC, bought us two EACH, and returned to work.

I've read reviews from critic after critic about how obscene this sandwich is. And it's not. It took the two of us, and mind you that COMBINED we weigh about 375, a total of five minutes to polish them BOTH off. Both of us, TWO EACH. We weren't starving, and afterward we weren't stuffed. Travel, yes. Dining, maybe. Entertainment, sure. But, it's just a damn sandwich, man. Minus the bread.

Score: Us 1, KFC 0

Hamm's, dog.

You have to hand it to banquet beers. You've got Coors, Hamm's, Olympia, High Life, Schlitz, Budweiser-- the beers your grandfather drank. And while I usually drink my own brand, or a New Belgium something-or-other, I have to tell you that last night Hamm's was good.

I made it to work by eight and spent the day with my brother building a round pen, throwing two pallets of horseshoes, two pallets of salt, mucking out a chicken pen, changing the marquee, and somehow having a decent sales day despite ourselves. By the time the old seven-pee-em rolled around, we decided it best to call it. I stopped by the store and picked up a couple of chickens (none in the freezer yet this year).

I threw them in a cast iron pot with some bacon grease, rosemary, thyme, and pepper, tossed that in the oven, and proceeded to sit barefoot on my lawn, drinking my Hamm's, watching the sun go down on a still night.

Teaching two nights this week. Will try and make it out to the shop tomorrow.