Playing With Our Food at Polyface Farm

It was still dark out.  The sun had not yet come up, yet my alarm was going off.   And to make matters worse, it was Saturday.  Normally, I would never allow this nonsense on a Saturday, but today was different. 

Today was our day to visit Polyface Farm for the Lunatic Tour. 

So I woke up the kids (despite my better judgment), packed everyone in the car, and headed out west for the 2 1/2 hour drive down to Swoope, VA.  After a few turns down the wrong road (farm country doesn't do the best labeling with road signs), we arrived at Polyface Farms just in time to hop on the hay wagon and begin the tour.

Our family was offered the opportunity to go on this tour because we buy our meat from Polyface and apparently, in 2012, we bought every time they delivered so we got a certificate to tour the farm.  We started buying from Polyface a few years back, after my husband read The Omnivore's Dilemma and since they have a drop off near our house, we signed up.  We have been hoarding whole chickens in the freezer to get through the winter ever since.

Our tour was led by Daniel Salatin, son of Joel Salatin the sort of lead philosopher and CEO of Polyface Farms.  The whole premise at Polyface Farms is about creating a farm that leverages and mimics how the environment works naturally to create sustainable agriculture.  They focus on the soil and creating depth within that soil to support their livestock.  At first I sort of shrugged it off as some hippie mumbo-jumbo, but after I visited the farm, I understood.  And, more importantly, I had a deep appreciation and respect for what the Salatins were promoting and believed in.

School's in session with Daniel Salatin

Our tour started with the chickens.  The chickens are in these light-weight cages that are moved every morning to a new square patch of grass.  They eat grain (not organic, but GMO free after some customer surveys and lack of buy-in on the "organic" branding), and bugs that wander in the cage.  They can also eat the grass, which has been 'pre-mowed' by the cows.  And potential predators are managed by the sweetest white lab/wolf hound, Michael.  The kids were really loving the chickens...

Checking out the chickens in action

After the chickens, we headed over to see the pigs.  The pigs basically aerate the soil to create a compost pile.  Plus, they serve as delicious bacon and pork chops.  Turns out, they are also super friendly and you could just walk right up to them as they were eating.  

More friendly than you'd think

Next we visited the turkeys.  The turkeys have a roost with a large overhang to protect them from birds of prey.  I have to say, these birds were so funny to watch, they have this little system that when one of them clucks, the rest cluck back.  I think it's like a warning about an approaching predator, but it sounded to me more like a voting exercise. 

Birds of a feather, flocking together

At this point in the tour, I began to learn more about my fellow tour-mates.  There were all kinds of folks visiting the farm, from Wisconsin to Pennsylvania.  Some were interested in learning about farming techniques to raise their own chickens, and others had read The Ominvore's Dilemma and wanted to see for themselves.  Pretty much everyone knew about the Salatins and read Joel's books.  It was amazing  to listen to the impact this farm has had on people far and wide. 

The youngest kept on growling at the chickens and saying "eat meat!"

The last stop on our tour was to see the cows.  The cows' job on the farm is to eat and basically, mow the grass.  The egg laying chickens are kept with the cows (in their Eggmobile) to eat bugs and scratch through the cow paddies to sanitize the pasture.  Since the cows won't eat grass where they have walked, they are moved to a new pasture every morning (just like the chickens).  The difference in quality and taste of the grass-fed beef is apparent.  

The Salatins started off with this farm in 1961 and have built a family-owned business based on a core set of values.  Their connection and respect for the earth, animals, and natural, sustainable agriculture is visible as soon as you get to the farm and reiterated through coversations with their staff.  They talk about respecting their animals and setting up an environment where the animals do their share of the work on the farm.  This type of mutal respect is often talked about, even among people, but seldom shown in action.  Polyface Farm takes those words and makes it part of their daily life.  And the result is unparalleled in not just the agriculture industry, but in the world of businesses, cultures and communities.  They have truly found, and cultivated, something special. 

Whole Chicken Carcasses = Homemade Chicken Stock

In addition to belonging to a CSA through Waterpenny Farm, we buy our meat through  PolyFace, a farm that raises animals using sustainable farming practices.  It is quite an adventure to get our meat every three weeks and create enough freezer space to be able to hold everything, but I'll save that story for another day.  

When you buy PolyFace chicken, you get a whole chicken because they don't butcher it into breasts, thighs and legs.  We get to do that (or rather my husband does because I am absolutely terrible at it).  So what we do is usually defrost a whole chicken when we want to use the meat for dinner, cut it into pieces, cook what we need, store the rest and then we are left with the chicken cavity.  I started to find these chicken cavity carcasses back in my freezer, wrapped in foil.  I guess my "at home butcher" wanted to reuse these and was relying on me to figure it out.  So I did.  Whole Chicken Carcasses = Homemade Chicken Stock.

Now I make homemade chicken stock once every month or so.  It is relatively easy to make but it does take a while *and* it sort of makes your whole house stink like chicken broth.  Oh well, not everything can be glamorous.  Here's how you do it:

 1) Defrost your chicken cavity (or chicken pieces if you have leftovers you don't want to use to cook with, but definitely use pieces with bones!) and throw it in a big pot.  I usually use 4-5 chicken carcasses.  Add water to fill the pot almost to the top.

Raw chicken, neck and all but no giblets

  2) Bring the water with the chicken carcasses to a boil, skimming off the clotted blood (which is foamy and disgusting).

3) Once the water reaches a full boil, lower the heat immediately to a simmer (so that little bubbles are just breaking the surface).  

4) Add some vegetables to flavor the broth.  I usually use whatever I have on hand, so for this batch, I used some onions, zucchini, squash, and thyme.  Just use 5 or so pieces.  Don't use tomatoes though!

Vegetables in the broth adds more flavor

5) Simmer the chicken stock with the vegetables for 5-6 hours.  The aroma of chicken will fill your house - so much so, that you won't need to buy Yankee Candles as you have created your own aroma - Chicken Soup.  You can thank me later.

What's that perfume you are wearing?  Oh, that?  That's Eau de Chic

 6) Let the stock cool, remove the larger chicken pieces, and skim the fat off the top if you want.  This is the part that makes my dog come down to the kitchen and wait near the stove for me to miss the trash can.  I do every time - special treat for Webster!  Be careful of those bones though, dogs can't have chicken bones. 

7) Strain the chicken broth to remove vegetables and small chicken pieces.  I use a regular pasta strainer.

Lookin' good

 8) Now for the part that is a straight up pain.  I pour the chicken broth into little baggies and freeze.  I use to use big gallon bags, but I don't need that much chicken broth for my recipes so now I use the little bags.  You can lay them on a cookie sheet to keep them flat and once they are frozen, they are easy to store up right.

Baggies make it easy to store and use in recipes

And that's it!  Now you have your own, homemade chicken broth to use in recipes and you got rid of all those chicken carcasses wrapped in aluminum foil in your freezer.  Oh wait, I probably was the only one with that problem...  well anyway, now you can make some homemade soup with your chicken stock!