Home Grown Chicken in the Pot

Chickens can provide:

• Healthy, home-grown eggs and meat
• Quality, nitrogen-rich fertilizer
• Effective pest control
• Pleasant companionship

Most folks can understand chickens as "pets". Getting some help ridding the yard and garden of ticks and Japanese beetles is considered a good thing. Natural fertilizer for the garden is a plus. "Free" eggs are a bonus. But many people would have to draw the line at eating their chickens for meat. We have crossed that line.


After allowing our recently harvested chicken to rest in the refrigerator for 48+ hours, I prepared it for the crock pot. The recipe?

• Stuff the bird with loads of fresh garlic cloves, onion quarters, celery stalks, and stems of rosemary
• shower with the juice of one lemon
• sprinkle with paprika, salt, and freshly ground pepper
• cook for two hours on high, then two hours on low in the crock pot. 

Mmmm ... mmmm ... mmmm! What a treat! Slow-cooked "made from scratch" good ol' yard-bird for dinner on a Monday night. It was delicious, if I say so myself.

We were afraid the meat of this older hen might be stringy or tough, but it wasn't. It did, however, taste different than grocery store chicken. There were four of us around the table - Rouse the Spouse; our daughter, Abi; my sister, Janet; and me. We were all trying to describe the difference ...  

• First, the fat was different. It was more yellow in color and more "gummy" in feel.  It reminded us of pork fat.
• The dark meat was darker in color and richer in flavor. At first we were laughing and said it tasted more "chicken-y", but then Janet said it sort of tasted like roast, and she was right! But not quite as strong as beef roast. We decided it was more like a pork tenderloin.
• Upon reflection, I think it tasted more the way chicken used to taste!

I cooked up the liver, gizzards, heart, and neck to make giblet gravy, which I served over rice. (Note: The neck is still on the uncooked chicken in the photo above. That's not a third leg!) After dinner, I removed the remaining meat and cooked the carcass overnight with onion, celery, and carrots covered with water in the slow cooker.

The resulting broth - plus leftover meat and rice - made a delicious batch of chicken and rice for supper the next night. The last bit of chicken breast went into a lovely mixed green salad of leaf lettuce and our own arugula - fresh out of the garden - enhanced with backyard green beans and potatoes, hard boiled happy chicken eggs, onions, and real bacon bits.

We provided for our chicken. In turn, our chicken provided for us. For that I am grateful.