Day 1

This is my first blog post.....ever! I have decided to challenge myself to start a blog and blog everyday for 30 days. Many of my friends say that I should blog about what I do everyday around our beginning homestead so here goes.
We just moved to this home on 1.25 acres a little more than a month ago to start a new life away from the city. But since we have moved we have discovered how easy it is becoming to be more self sufficient. We have purchased some different animals to help us out around the farm ( I will save that for a different day) and we have really gotten more involved in our quest to eat all real food all the time. In that quest I have come up with and discovered some awesome recipes and tricks that I am so excited to share! We home school our children because we think it's the best way for them to get the best education they can considering the state of our school systems today. I am an avid gardener. I love growing everything I eat. I love knowing where my food comes from and I always love enjoying the fruits of my labor! ha ha! The kids love to help me in the garden and at our new house it will be no different....except for 1 thing. The size of our garden now is about the size of our entire lot back in the city (almost .25 acre). Soooo needless to say, we have our work cut out for us! I am so excited to share our journey and some of the weird things that I think of along the way. For starters today
 I don't want to leave ya hangin without anything so I will give you my FAVORITE recipe for chicken. We always buy whole chicken for 3 reasons. #1, it's WAY cheaper then buying pieces separately. You will come to find I like to save a buck whenever I can. #2, it's far less processed than all those cut up pieces that are skinned and handled a lot. And #3, 1 chicken will feed our family better then a pack of breasts. Think about it, you not only get the breasts but you get all the other meat on the chicken. I like to save the dark meat for pot pie later in the week! OK so here goes my recipe:

1 Frying chicken (I like to cut mine down the middle and lay it flat in a roasting pan with the inside of the chicken facing down)
2 tablespoons of Dijon mustard (more or less depending on what ya like)
2 tablespoons melted butter
1 tablespoon dried tarragon
1/2 cup of white wine (the alcohol will be completely cooked out of the sauce)
2 cups chicken stock
Any veggies you might like cut up into bite size pieces(this just save me time you'll see why)

Put your chicken flat in a roasting pan (insides face down). Mix the mustard, butter, and tarragon and brush it all over the chicken. Put the chicken in the oven and bake at 350 for 2 hours. With about 45 minutes left to cook I add my veggies that way I don't have to worry about how I'm gonna cook those too. Potatoes and zucchini are a family fav here but you can add whatever kind you want! When the chicken is done take it out of the pan along with the veg and put it in a different pan then put it bake in the oven at the lowest possible heat, just to keep it warm while you make the sauce. Add the wine, and stock to the roasting pan and boil vigorously until the sauce thickens. Season it to taste and serve. Don't throw away your left over bones and meat. Take all the meat you can get off of the chicken and use it later in the week for enchiladas or pot pie. Put the carcass in a freezer bag and I will show ya how to make stock on another day then you don't have to buy stock from the store!

Now although this meal takes 2 hours to cook it is SUPER easy. A lot of the time I don't even make the sauce. I love a good 1 pan meal and this is IT! Serve it with a salad and you have meal that will make anyone happy! It only takes about 5 minutes to prepare and throw in the oven and it only costs around $10 to make(depending on your veg). I hope you enjoyed my first blog and I hope to have more to write tomorrow! until then, enjoy!