My, oh my, how the time flies.
I swear, I blinked and September is here! We have been incredibly busy this summer between working on the farm, food preservation, and enjoying life with our three boys! The garden did very well this year. I’ve been busy canning, dehydrating, and freezing as much as I can for winter! It’s my goal to have to make as little trips to town as possible during the colder months.
We have officially started our own business, Garden of Edon, where we offer organically grown herbs that are available in a few local shops, and pasture raised, organic whole chickens! This has been a HUGE learning curve and has definitely added a new dynamic to the family. Along with selling goods, I’ve also begun hosting classes on our farm focusing on seasonal foraging! (Not to mention we start homeschooling our oldest soon!)
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Pastured Chickens
Our pasture raised chickens are kept safe and warm inside for the first three weeks of their lives.
Once they have reached the size that they can withstand cooler night time temperatures, we move them into large chicken tractors on pasture. These tractors are moved to fresh grass twice daily. The chickens are able to lay in the sun, enjoy fresh air, fresh bedding, and peck and scratch away to their little heart’s desire. We offer only organic feed and fresh drinking water.
They are never medicated, vaccinated, or have any added “plumping” agents. (feel free to google that one…) Nor are they dipped in any chlorine solutions prior to packaging.
We process all of the chickens ourselves, ensuring a humane butchering process that is as gentle as possible to keep the animals from getting too stressed out.
We currently have whole birds available for pickup, so if you are local and would like to fill your freezer for the season, don’t hesitate to reach out!
Check out the YouTube ad the boys made!
We have raised meat chickens for many years for ourselves, but this is our first year offering to the public and have been very pleased with the interest! In the coming years we hope to offer forested pork and grassfed beef as well!
How to Cook a Whole Chicken
One of the most frequently asked questions I get, is how to cook a whole bird?
My favorite way to make chicken is utilizing our pressure cooker. Tonight, for instance, my boys had an excessive case of the wiggles. I was able to grab a frozen 6 1/2lb bird, thaw it just enough to remove the plastic, and toss it into our Ninja Foodi (We made the switch from our Instapot this summer, too!) for 34 minutes with a few seasonings and extra vegetables and take the boys to a nearby nature reserve for a hike!
By the time we came back home 2 hours later, we had a hot dinner ready for us!
The Ninja Foodi Duo has really been a luxury for us. Not only do we get the convenience of a pressure cooker, but we can use it to air fry food and for dehydrating as well! If we hadn’t been so hungry after our hike, I could have removed the chicken, broth, and vegetables and placed the chicken back in with the air fryer drum and lightly fried this chicken to give it a nice crispy skin! (Which is absolutely tasty, but the boys were ravenous and couldn’t wait the few extra minutes!)
Recipe
Ingredients
- 6 1/2 lb whole chicken
- Diced celery
- 6 medium potatoes quartered
- 4 cloves of garlic
- 6 large carrots cut into sticks
- 1 lemon
- Sprigs of fresh rosemary, thyme, oregano, and sage
- Salt and pepper to taste
Directions
- Place the appropriate amount of water into your pressure cooker (following your user manual guidelines)
- Set your whole, frozen chicken into your pressure cooker.
- Add in vegetables along the sides.
- Squeeze the lemon juice over your bird and vegetables, and then place the peel inside the chicken’s cavity.
- Add spices, salt and pepper
- Place lid, making sure the valve is set to “seal” or “pressure” depending on your model.
- Set your Ninja to “pressure” and change the time to 34 minutes.
- *Note* if you Google cook times for whole frozen chickens, you will usually find cooking directions for store bought birds. Those birds cook much differently than pasture raised birds, as they are generally confined to small areas, have limited dietary options, and are injected after butchering with either saline solution or other “natural flavors* to add juice and flavor to the meat. Cooking times can be reduced slightly with a pasture raised bird. I’ve found that about 5 minutes per pound of our chickens will give us super tender, juicy meat.
- Allow the pressure cooker to release naturally for at least 10 minutes before switching the valve over to release steam (be careful when you do!).
Don’t forget to use the broth and the bones from your chicken after you’ve finished it! You can add the bones back into the broth with any of the vegetable trimmings (carrot ends, celery greens, onion cutoffs, etc.), cover with water, and pressure cook them for two hours to get a delicious, healthy bone broth. This broth will be full of collagen and extra minerals that are super nourishing to the body.
I also take the left over meat and save it for a separate meal the following day. Either chicken soup with the bone broth, chicken salad sandwiches, or chicken nuggets! (Similar to how I make our salmon nuggets here!)
What is your favorite way to cook whole chicken?