For the first week of the Dark days challenge I am at a disadvantage. My last farmers market trip was nearly 2 weeks ago and I have slim pickings from what is left because I was mainly focused on Thanksgiving when I shopped. Meat is easy since I have 20 pastured chickens, 2 pastured turkeys, 10 rabbits and quite a bit left from my grass fed half beef all from local sources in my freezer waiting. What is going to be difficult is the fact that we generally eat low carb and most root veggies aren’t allowed on the GAPS diet. And those are what is plentiful in winter. But hopefully I can find enough greens, squash, and turnips to get us through.
So this weeks meal isn’t very exciting. Roasted chicken, Roasted butter nut squash and a lettuce salad.
When I got up this morning I put my thawed chicken into a pot big enough to immerse it and poured on filtered water and a couple of tbsp of salt. I have also done this with a frozen chicken and it is thawed by dinner time. I included an ice pack to keep the water cool. I didn’t have any room in the fridge for the pot. Not really sure why I took this photo before I finished filling up the water. You need to have the meat completely immersed to brine it.
At about 2:45 I put the chicken into the roasting pan. I knew was going to be busy until after 4 and wanted to be sure I didn’t start it too late. I put it in the oven and set the temp at 300 to slow roast it. Here it is finished and swimming in it’s own juice, Yum. (ok this isn’t a great photo. I’m still learning how to photograph food) I meant to get a photo of it on the platter but forgot. I put the lid on the roaster and let it sit for 30 min or so while the squash finished roasting and it was so nice and juicy! I’m always too last minute and hurried to do that and now I know it really is worth it. This could have been further seasoned but I was in a hurry. If I wasn’t doing Dark Days I would have put a lemon cut in half inside. It is very good with paprika as well but one child can’t have that so I didn’t do it.
At about 4:30 I started on the squash. Isn’t it beautiful? And huge! A woman in our UNFI co-op had a surplus that she grew and sold to several of us. Very local indeed!
I simply cut it in half and put it face down on a jelly roll pan. It needs a pan with a lip or the juice will run everywhere. I put it into the oven with the chicken and after I took the chicken out I cranked it up to 400 and finished it off. It is done when it is soft when pushed. These had really strong peels so I also had to flip them over to test. Sorry this picture isn’t good either. I then scooped out the orange flesh into a bowl and mashed it with my local raw butter that I made myself and froze back when I could get raw cream and some salt.
