tender | Better Hens and Gardens

Heritage Birds for Real Chicken Flavor

It’s time to process the 11 Buckeye roosters that didn’t make the cut; and although that’s not exactly pleasant, I’m expecting big things from the meals they’ll be featured in. That’s because heritage birds like the Buckeyes have something that today’s supermarket birds don’t – they have flavor.

The commercial chickens grown for meat today have been bred to reach a marketable size in confined space within 9 weeks, thereby maximizing throughput and minimizing costs. If these birds are kept for more than 9 weeks, losses from disease and health issues are high – they have simply been bred for fast [...]

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Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis)

We love using fresh rosemary in our cooking (see Herbed Eggs), and find that it’s a very easy herb to grow. But a little rosemary goes a long way, so we always buy just one plant from the garden center in spring. Rosemary’s also a tender perennial, and in colder areas of the country it needs to be brought indoors if you plan to overwinter it.

Plants should be moved indoors before a good freeze, so I repotted ours today. I used a soilless planting mix because rosemary requires well-drained soil and because it’s light - I plan to just move this plant in and out each fall and spring, thereby avoiding the cost of a plant each year. I snuck a [...]

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