Friends for dinner

We had our friends over for dinner this weekend. I thought I would share the menu.

For starters, Holming made up a spicy salmon roll and a California roll. He has his own special (and secret) recipe for these that I'm not allowed to share. But, believe me they were yum.

Pancetta Wrapped Chicken Thighs
Marinate boneless/skinless chicken thighs in olive oil, fresh thyme, crushed garlic, lemon juice, salt and pepper for 3 hours.
Lift from marinade. Place fresh sprig of thyme in the thigh then wrap the whole thigh with a strip of pancetta. Grill for 20 minutes or until cooked through.

Pear, Blue Cheese and Caramelized Walnut Salad
1 pear
Rocket lettuce
Puhoi Valley Matakana blue cheese
Caramelized walnuts- I used 1 Tbls balsamic vinaigrette with 1/4 cup sugar. melted into a syrup then added 1 cup of walnuts. Once coated bake for 10 minutes.

Dressing- whisk together:
walnut oil (you can use olive oil)
Lemon juice 3 parts oil to 1 part juice
dijon mustard
salt and pepper

Garlic, Thyme and Mascarpone Polenta
2 tsp fresh thyme
2 cloves of garlic
saute in 20 grams of butter for 2 minutes. Add 1 1/2 cups of chicken stalk and bring to a boil. Then add 1/2 cup of polenta and continue cooking for 3 minutes.
add 1/4 cup of mascarpone and serve.

I opted out of making desert because when we went to Japan Mart earlier that day, we ran across these yummy Mochi ice cream balls that our friend Zoltan really loves.

What a great night of food, wine and laughter. If anyone wants to come to dinner at our place, email me.

One Sick Chook

I’ve not had a very good start with keeping backyard chickens. Two weeks after receiving the ex-battery hens, Dolores fell ill in a bad way. I noticed one Friday that she was separating herself from the other girls, which isn’t normal for her, as she was the Mother Hen of the flock. I quickly went down to the chicken run to examine the situation and discovered that she also had very bad diarrhea. My first thought was to text my husband, and the second was “what the hell do I do with a sick chicken?” Not knowing much about chickens, I just left her in the run with the others and hoped she was just having a bad day. By Saturday morning, I was all over the internet searching for remedies on how to cure chicken diarrhea!

I tried everything from olive oil to epsom salt and when that didn’t work, I tried apple cider vinegar. I even examined her to check if she was egg bound (when an egg is stuck in the oviduct). The list goes on and on. Since this was my favourite bird in the flock, I broke down and took her to an avian vet. Fortunately, she poo’d right on the examination table so he did a gram stain of her poo and said Dolores had traces of Clostridia O. I couldn't find any information on that on the web. He gave me a 5 day supply of Clavulox tabs (250mg) and told me to keep her fed and hydrated as I had been doing so far.

On returning home from the vet, we finally decided to isolate her from the others. In hindsight, that’s the first thing we should have done, as whatever bug one chook gets the others can get too. After finishing all her antibiotics and all the hand feeding and hydrating (and all the time I took off from work), she finally died. What a long and sad process.

I did so much research to help cure Dolores. I feel like a walking chicken encyclopedia (or Google link). Unfortunately all the remedies I read and tried just couldn’t cure my girl. We ended up burying her next to the chicken coop. Good bye Dolores.

My favourite sounds from the girls

Just a quick post to introduce my favourite sounds that the girls make. They are a needy lot and start coo-coo-cooing once they hear my voice.

This clip shows how they all gather at the chicken run door when they see me coming.

The black hen with red comb (Roxy The Red Ruby Gem) is my screamer.
She starts making that noise the minute she hears my voice....even if I'm in the house.

Next is a 2 1/2 minute clip of feeding time. You might want to lower the volume on your computer before playing this one, as Suki (the black chook with flat red comb) gets very excited when food is involved.
Suki is the most timid one of the group and doesn't like to be handled- at all. She is also the loudest of them all.


This last video clip is of Suki, again. Usually she just goes on and on and on, but I couldn't get it all in one shot. I think she's camera shy.


I never thought I would have chickens nor did I ever think I would enjoy it as much as I do. It has been fun getting to know each of their personalities.

Till the next post