Freezing the Birds

After getting the chickens processed they were given back to us packed in ice chest with ice water on them. Ice water gets into the cavity of the bird and cools them down faster than just covering them with ice would. It took us about 3 hours to get them all in the freezer. We ordered poultry shrink bags from Nayda's Poultry. I ordered them on a Friday night and received them on the next Monday. That was very fast!  We looked at the tutorial on this site: http://poultryshrinkbags.blogspot.com/ to get an idea of how to use the bags.  The bags came with a straw that you put into the cavity of the bird and then twisted the bag around the straw. That worked better for us than cutting a slit in the bag.

It was very easy to do and the finished product looks really good. I haven't printed my labels yet. I ordered blank labels from Growers Discount Labels and they arrived within three days of ordering them.

Here are pictures of our packaging process:

Washing and cutting off the necks

Drying the birds before putting in bags

Bird in a Bag

Dipping in 180-200° water

Shrink wrapped

The necks were left really long on the chickens so we cut them off down below the breast. I will use them to make broth. They had a lot of meat on them for necks. It is our goal to not waste any of the chicken. We haven't eaten one yet but will be cooking one this weekend.

Have a great day!
Mae

Linking with the Homestead Barn Hop 

Chickens & Cherries

The meat chicks are finally ready for butchering. We have decided not to do the processing ourselves. There is a local company here that will do it for us. We will get them processed on Thursday. The processor will do everything in about 40 minutes. We will get them back in an ice water bath. Then they will hang out in the fridge for no more than 24 hours.

While trying to figure out what we would package them in I came across this website: http://poultryshrinkbags.blogspot.com/ which is great for instructions. Then I did a search for poultry shrink bags and found them cheaper here: http://www.nadyaspoultry.com/index.html. I ordered them over the weekend and am hoping they will be here by Friday evening when will package them for the freezer.

Our cherry tree has done well this year. And I was proactive and got to them before the birds did. I made a cherry pie and still had quite a few left over. So I made cherry jelly. I used the juicer attachment for my Kitchenaid mixer and it worked outstandingly. With the jelly I made cherry danishes for breakfast yesterday,

Cherry Danish recipe:
2 pkg. crescent rolls
Cherry jelly
Glaze

Spread out the crescent rolls and separate as you normally would. Put about 1 teaspoon jelly on the wide end of the roll.

Fold over the skinny end as shown in picture above.

Then fold the other end as shown. Crimp the edges together and fold under the pointy ends.

Your packets should look like the ones above. Bake according to crescent roll directions. When brown, remove from oven and glaze.

I used powdered sugar & just enough milk to make a thin glaze.

The finished product. Yummy.

Have a great day!
Mae

Linking to: The Homestead Barn Hop