Best-laid Plans - Our Spring ?? Chicken Celebration

We ate our oven-roasted whole pastured chicken raised on Polyface Farms in Virginia with only 3 of our guests as one family could not come due to last minute flu and another family started the drive across town but could not get out of their own neighborhood because of the poorly timed snow and hazardous roads. Here is the chicken coming out of the oven after 20 minutes to do "the flip".


The second photo is the final dish, all cooked, browned nicely, juices running clear, with tender veggies all ready to eat. Needless to say, our friends who could not make it were incredibly sad to miss out on this special treat. I know these photos will not do it justice for either the taste or smell, but this chicken was scrumptious and the company was delightful.

We also had a beautiful salad made with locally grown greens from Brines Farm, whole grain bread with both caponeta (made last fall with locally grown organic vegetables, frozen, and then thawed) and a bean spread made from some beans I grew and dried last summer (North Carolina white pole beans - very prolific!) plus some fresh herbs growing in my window garden and plenty of garlic from my husband's garlic patch. We also served homemade applesauce, both plain using some Lura Red apples we purchased at a farm stand in Minnesota on our way home from a wedding in September and a special concoction my husband made called "Fire in the Belly" applesauce that combined some locally grown organic Grimes apples with jalapeno peppers and chili powder ("spicy" says our 2-year-old guest Grace - she was right about that!)

For dessert, I made a cobbler from rhubarb, apples, and blueberries, all put up and frozen from last summer or fall. Oh, yum, yum, yum, with a little vanilla ice cream on top of hot cobbler fresh from the oven, oh I repeat, yum, yum, yum, and yum! I am going to have to put what we did not eat under lock and key to make sure there is enough to serve for dessert tomorrow on Easter Sunday. No one left the table hungry! (Recipes for the bean spread and fruit cobbler will follow in a separate posting. I'll ask my husband if he is willing to share his "Fire-in-the-belly" applesauce!)

Some final (hopefully) photos of spring snow in the upper Midwest and one last (hopefully) enjoyable romp in the snow until next winter for our dog Kaya. However, admittedly I prefer her tracking snow into the house versus mud!

A blessing for our food:

Bless this food we are about to receive.

Give bread to those who hunger,

And hunger for justice to us who have bread.

Amen.

~~Traditional American Grace

Diana Dyer, MS, RD