Outdoor Cookin' - Dutch Oven Jambalaya

Last weekend we made a homemade pizza in the dutch oven and Benjamin and I decided that we would try to cook outside as often as we could.  On Sunday afternoon Tricia went to Baton Rouge and left us at home.  We figured we would break out the Dutch Oven and get busy on a Shrimp, Sausage, and Chicken Jambalaya.  

The ingredients are:

• A splash of oil in the bottom of the pot
• 1 lb. Cormier's smoked sausage that we cut up
• 1 medium onion chopped up
• 1 cup bell pepper chopped up
• 1 cup celery chopped
• Emeril's Essence Cajun Seasoning
• 1 cup rice
• 3 cloves minced garlic
• 1 cup chicken broth
• 2 1/2 cups beef broth
• 4 bay leaves
• a sprinkle of thyme
• 12 oz. medium shrimp
• 1/2 cup cooked chicken

We got 36 charcoal briquettes burning (15 for the bottom and 21 for the top) and coated the bottom of the pot with oil.  When the pot was sizzling, we threw the sausage in the pot for 2 minutes.

We then added the onion, bell pepper and celery, along with the cajun seasoning and stirred.

After about 10 minutes the vegetables were starting to get translucent.  We stirred the dish up with a big wooden spoon.  

We then added all the other ingredients like rice, broth, garlic, bay leaves and thyme.  After it simmers, cook for 20 minutes.

After 20 minutes, add in the shrimp and cooked chicken.

With the lid off of the pot, cook for an additional 10 minutes and then it is time to eat!

A quick review of the meal: The flavor was phenomenal! I mean the seasoning was perfect.  The aroma coming out of the pot had me salivating like one of Pavlov's dogs.  It was delicious, but it could have been better.  Here's two areas where I messed up.  First, after adding the broth I cooked it for 20 minutes.  What I should've done was wait for it to simmer AND THEN start the timer for 20 minutes. Secondly, there was a strong wind blowing Sunday afternoon.  This accelerated the briquettes burning and by the last 10 minutes of the cook time, the briquettes were cooling off.  I had to light up some more charcoal in the chimney starter and place under the pot.  By this time, however, the briquettes were far too hot and the jambalaya began to stick a little bit to the bottom of the pot.  I kept stirring constantly to keep it from sticking, but in the end, I had to remove the pot from the fire to keep it from burning the meal.  Pulling it off the fire prematurely made the jambalaya a tad bit 'too liquidy.'  That's okay, though.  We ate a bunch of it.

While cooking outside, Benjamin saw something up in the tree and went and got his rifle.  One shot and he had a big fat squirrel on the ground.

He cleaned the squirrel and put it in a ziploc bag in the freezer alongside some previously killed squirrels.  I think Benjamin wants to cook a dessert like bread pudding with rum sauce next time we pull the dutch oven out, but maybe the time after that we can cook a pot of squirrel stew!

A Day to Honor Russ

Saturday we met Russ at 11 a.m. at the Petroleum Club in Lafayette for a meeting of the Louisiana Society for Horticultural Research (LSHR).  They were honoring their scholarship winners and Russ happened to be one of the two deserving recipients.  We were invited to a luncheon and to see him get recognized. Russ is a senior at LSU and will be graduating on May 12th.

His mother and I are proud of the hard-work and diligence he's exhibited.  I never even thought about applying for scholarships once I was already in college, but Russ did.  Each semester he would seek out scholarship opportunities, applying for them - and winning them.  He's worked for LSU's Dairy department, milking 80 Holstein cows to provide milk for the residence hall cafeterias as well as for sale to Borden's.  For the past several years, he's worked with a professor at LSU tending to sweet potato trial plots in Louisiana and many neighboring states, seeking to develop a new variety of sweet potato to help the sweet potato industry.

Seated at the far right of the head table below, is the guest speaker for the luncheon, Mr. Robert E. "Buddy" Lee.

Mr. Lee is from Independence, Louisiana and is one of the most respected plant breeders in North America.  He developed Encore Azaleas, the world's best-selling multi-season azaleas.  They bloom in spring, summer, and fall. You can learn more about them by clicking HERE.  Mr. Lee gave a fantastic talk, showing pictures of early work in the nursery, compared to today.  His speech was both informative and funny and really kept your interest. As you may be aware, I like growing things that you can eat!  Flowers and ornamental plants are things I don't have a lot of experience with, but it was interesting to listen to Mr. Lee talk with great passion about what he does.

At one point, he stated that everyone always wants to see his "research facility."  He showed a picture of what appeared to be a 16' x 8' greenhouse with trays of seed pots with simple shop lights hanging over them.  He stated that he likes to keep things small since he can effectively manage and control everything.  You can't argue with his success.  It was an inspiring story from a pioneer in the industry..

Russ was called to the podium and gave a short speech thanking the group for believing in him and awarding him the scholarship.  He was very well received by the horticulture professionals in attendance as well as the LSU professors.  They all had great things to say about him.

So obviously, we're Russ' parents and are very proud of him (and biased), but we know he's going to do great things in his field.  He's not even sure what exactly he's going to do upon graduation.  He hopes to find a job as a plant breeder or researcher for one of the nurseries in Forest Hill, Louisiana or for a landscape company in the Lake Charles or Lafayette area.  If Russ can find something that he is happy doing and looks forward to getting up each morning and pouring his energies into, the rest will take care of itself.  With his work ethic and smarts, he'll set the world on fire.  I just know it.

Go Dig in the Dirt

Back when I was a young boy, we would go over to my grandma's house and she would do something that I remember to this day.  She would hand us some silverware (not real silver, mind you, but still good eating utensils) and tell us to go dig in the dirt.  We would grab the spoons she gave us and we would go to a spot between her house and a few camellia bushes that grew beautiful pink and red blooms.  It was there that we would dig.

I can still remember the smell of the cool moist dirt that was in that shaded area.  It was almost black and was made up of years of decomposed leaves of live oak trees. Since there was tons of organic matter there, the soil was loose and easy to dig in and teeming with earthworms.  We would look for treasure in that soil and when we were done, we would go turn our spoons in to Grandma and go seek out another adventure.

Well 40-something years later and I still have a spoon that I like to dig with!  I don't think Tricia would appreciate me digging with one of the spoons we eat with, so I have an old spoon that I picked up somewhere.  I use it to dig holes for planting seedlings.  I also use a plastic fork for digging the seedlings out of the seed pots.

Armed with my spoon and fork, I pulled all of the tomato seedlings from the cold frame on the back porch and got them all planted in the ground.  It was nice to have that done.  Last week I had moved the peppers from the cold frame and transplanted them in the garden.  I did this at a time that coincided with about 3 cool nights.  This seemed to stress that peppers even though I had them hardening off on the back patio for a while.  They were looking a little rough and I may have even lost one of them.  Fortunately, the warmer temps lately revived the drooping peppers.

Once I had each hole dug with my spoon, I filled the hole with some organic soil, put a Tablespoon of organic vegetable fertilizer in the hole and then placed the seedling in the hole and covered it up.  I placed some compost around the little plant.  I'll keep my eye on all of our transplanted tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant.  

Since this is my spoon, I don't have to turn it in to anyone at the end of my digging adventure.

Moving Day For the Meat Birds

There are a few predominant factors that guide me in determining when to move the meat birds out of the garage and out on grass.  The first is the age of the birds. I usually try to move them out around the 3 to 4 week old point. The weather plays an important role.  I'm not going to move them out if rainstorms and cold weather are in the forecast.  Finally, the smell or better yet, stench of the birds.

There comes a distinct time at which it doesn't matter how often you clean out and replace the bedding in the brooder, the fowl fouls it up with the quickness.  It is a sickening smell that permeates the garage and when you open the back door, the odor wafts into the house.  Flies become ever present in the garage and they make their way into the house when the door is opened.

Sunday afternoon of this week, I raised the white flag of surrender and transported the birds out of the garage.  Fortunately, the Gorilla Cart wagon was a great help in performing this task and we had the birds moved in 4 trips.

The meat wagon

They were deposited in our newly built chicken tractor out on grass.  Fresh clover was growing, the sun was shining, and it was a good day to be a meat bird. Freedom from the confines of the indoor brooder, more elbow room and fresh grass to eat.  Once they were moved, I cleaned out the soiled bedding from the brooder and moved it to the compost pile in the garden.

It was a little chilly and the birds bunched up a bit to signal that they were cold.  To remedy this I put a tarp over the chicken tractor to act as a windbreak.  I also hung two heat lamps from the 1x4 that spanned the top of the tractor.  The birds were happy after that.  I added an additional waterer, bringing the water capacity within the tractor to 3 gallons.  Those birds sure drink a lot of water.  As far as food, they eat a lot of that, too.  I originally placed a pvc rain gutter in the tractor and two days later placed another one.  A pvc rain gutter is the cheapest and best feed trough you can imagine.  You get the biggest bang for your buck using a pvc rain gutter as a feed trough rather than a store-bought one.

Now each day, I pull the tractor one tractor length so the chickens are on fresh grass each day.  I learned a lesson the hard way that I need to slow down and get Benjamin to come assist when pulling the tractor.  I pulled it too fast Monday afternoon and the birds bunched up and one of the birds died.  A second was stressed and I revived it.  The first bird, however, was beyond saving, so I got my knife and butchered it.  It was exactly the size of a Cornish hen.  That bird now resides in our deep freeze.  In total we've only lost 4 birds.  That isn't bad at all, considering the fatality rates of previous years.

Well, that's enough for chickens.  Next week I plan on blogging about anything else but chickens.

2017 Meat Birds - 4 Weeks Old

This evening for the weekly weigh-in on Wednesday night, I had to walk out in the backyard to get the birds.  Yes, I moved the meat birds out of the garage this past Sunday afternoon.  They were really just stinking and the flies were getting bad in the garage.  Since we use the back door primarily, we were having flies come in the house and that's not good.  So we moved them out and I'll likely talk about that in tomorrow's post.  It has been a little chilly the past several nights and the birds don't really have all their feathers, so they bunch up under the heat lamp to stay warm.

Under the heat lamps

 I walked out with a 5 gallon bucket, and picked up one of them, put him in the bucket and brought him in to the scale in the garage.  Last week I showed you how I marked the bird we're weighing by tying a ribbon around its neck.  Well, that didn't last a day.  It fell off and I found the ribbon on the floor of the brooder.  Since we're going to eat these birds, I don't want to put paint on their heads, so here's what I'm going to do: I'll just pick up an average sized bird each week and weigh it. It won't be the smallest and it won't be the biggest.

I took the bird out of the bucket and placed him on top of the scale.  He has a wide, muscular stance and his legs look like they are too big for his body.  He is a monster, for sure.

The four week old bird weighed in at 2 pounds 4 ounces this week.

Here are the results from Week 4 :

*Week 4 2017:  2 pounds 4 ounces

*Week 4 2016:  2 pound 15 ounces

*Week 4 2015:    1 pound 4 ounces

So to summarize, last week they weighed on average 1 pound 9 ounces and this week 2 pound 4 ounces. That means they gained 11 ounces over the last week.  They are still 11 ounces shy of where they were at this age last year, but a full pound heavier than what the 2015 birds weighed at this age. 

Building The New Chicken Tractor (Part II)

In Building The New Chicken Tractor (Part I) we showed you the progress on our new chicken tractor, the design, and how we started constructing it.  Tonight we'll continue.  Last night we built the basic skeleton and added some bracing to make it stronger.  We took two rolls of 3 foot tall welded wire fencing, stapled it to one of the 2x4's on the bottom and rolled it over the top, cutting it off with cutting pliers and stapling to the 2x4 on the other side.  Then we used zip ties to fasten it to the pvc. This process was repeated all the way across until we had the entire curved structure enclosed in fencing.  Fastening the fencing to the two ends took a bit more time.  The bottom was easy as it is a straight cut.  The top required cutting and then using wire to fasten to the pvc hoop. Once done, it enclosed the end nicely.

I wanted to show a few shots to show the bracing supports that added a lot of strength to the chicken tractor.  First some metal conduit with wooden dowels tightly wedged in each end allowed us to run a screw through the pvc hoop and into the wood in the conduit, tightening it down.  Then a 2x2 was attached vertically with a hole drilled to allow us to run the conduit through it.

The very top of the 2x4 had a notch that accepted the 1x4 top brace, supporting the frame securely.  This was screwed in to keep it from moving.

On the other side, a door frame with bracing was added.  Everything but the doorway was shrouded with welded wire fencing.  This discourages predators.

A door with a latch was installed and this enables us to walk into the chicken tractor without bending over. The door is covered with chicken wire and has adequate bracing to make it sturdy and strong.  Notice the trap door at the bottom.  Once the birds are trained to roost in the new chicken tractor, I'll only open the trap door during the day, allowing the chickens to come and go as they please and I'll close it after they are all inside at night.

I am very pleased with the design of the new tractor and how it turned out.  Tune in on Thursday where we will finish things up. A couple of quick comments is that the tractor is tall enough to not have to bend over when walking inside, and that is nice! Instead of pushing this tractor, we will pull it. Notice the rope draped over the top on both sides.  It runs through the 6 foot 2x4s with a knot tied in the rope on the backside.

Tomorrow we will weigh the meat birds at 3 weeks old and then perhaps finish this series up on Thursday.

Building The New Chicken Tractor (Part 1)

In This Post I talked about the dilapidated condition of our chicken tractors and my quest to build a new one.  In the post I linked above, I explained three things that I was looking for in a new chicken tractor design.  I scoured the Internet for a design that I could build upon, making a few changes.  I found exactly what I was looking for HERE. That unique design met my criteria of being economical to build, durable, and lighter. We'll build one as a prototype and make any changes necessary to the second tractor.

I did alter the plans a bit to make it taller, so that I could walk inside it without bending over.  I added more hoops and a few other amenities that I'll discuss in this post and maybe one or two more posts to follow.  I discussed my project with a real good friend at church.  He is a master craftsman who I admire greatly.  His attention to detail and ingenuity in figuring out different ways to do things never cease to amaze me.  When he asked if he could help with the chicken tractor project, I was ecstatic.

On what might have been the most perfect day of the year, we assembled our building materials:

• Three 12 foot treated 2x4s
• One 12 foot 1x4
• Five joints of 1/2 inch schedule 40 pvc pipe
• Screws
• Cordless drill
• 7/8" spade bit
• Two 50 foot rolls of welded wire fencing, 3 ft high
• Cable ties

Since we determined that we wanted five hoops for stability, we marked out and drilled five holes, evenly spaced, in two of the three 2x4s, drilling perhaps an inch and a half deep.  For the third 2x4, we cut it in half.  The length of our chicken tractor will be roughly 12 feet long, while the width will be approximately 6 feet wide.

Then with heavy screws with a 'star' bit, we formed up the base of the tractor, putting two screws in each side.  By screwing the 6 foot 2x4's on the inside of the 12 foot 2x4's, we gained an extra foot and a half of interior area.  I was unaware of this, but now that I think about it, it makes perfect sense.

Once the base was together, we simply began inserting the pvc pipe just to ensure it fit properly. Yes!  Things are taking shape.  We continued putting all five joints of pipe in the base.

Prior to doing this we put the 1x4 alongside the 12 foot 2x4s and marked where the holes were drilled on the 1x4 and drilled corresponding holes.  We took off one side of the pvc and threaded the pipe through the 1x4 and back into the base on the other side as you can see below.  The 1x4 gave the chicken tractor strength and stability AND will allow us to hang a waterer, and heat lamps from the hoops.  The "boss lady" came and inspected our progress and was pleased.

We added some bracing to each side with pvc pipe screwed into the skeleton of the tractor at 45 degree angles.  We also used 10 smaller screws to anchor the pvc into each of the 10 holes in the 2x4's so that they wouldn't pull out.

This is turning out mighty fine.  It was time for a break and we decided to start up again tomorrow, so I think that is what we'll do now.  Please join us tomorrow for Building The New Chicken Tractor (Part II).  I can't wait to show you how it turned out!