Autumn has definitely arrived here in mid-Michigan. Leaves are beginning to turn. We’ve just had a few days in a row of dreary and overcast skies, drizzle, and temperatures that haven’t climbed out of the mid-fifties. On Monday I brought in some firewood, cleared the cobwebs out of our wood burner, and within a few minutes our family room was glowing with the kind of warmth that only a fire can produce. Unsurprisingly, the Yeoman Farm Children have begun camping out on the carpet in front of it to do their school work. Little Big Brother in particular likes to set up shop there, first thing after I fire it up in the morning, before his siblings come downstairs.
The arrival of fall has also led to a change of menu: soups and stews are back. I found a couple of lamb necks in the freezer, added a couple of chicken feet from this summer’s crop of broilers, and let the whole thing soak for a couple of hours with an onion and carrot in a large pot of water with some apple cider vinegar. I then brought the thing to a boil and let it simmer all night. Around mid-day, I de-boned the meat and then added seasonings and a lot of sliced carrots and potatoes (a food processor makes quick work of these). That pot simmered all afternoon, and proved an extremely popular dinner. We had a couple of quarts left over for lunches, but it otherwise disappeared the first night. I made another pot yesterday, and it was again a popular dinner centerpiece.
I’ll probably make lamb stew later in the week. My soups and stews are all basically simple variations on the same theme. With stew, I’ll lightly marinate some lamb stew meat or shanks in the crock pot with a little apple cider vinegar and an onion for a few hours. I’ll then add a bit of water, and let the crock pot run on low all night. By morning, the meat falls off the bone and is simmering in a wonderfully thick sauce. After removing the bones, I’ll fill the crock pot with sliced carrots, potatoes, onions, seasonings, and the cooked stew meat. It then cooks on low the rest of the day. By afternoon, the whole house is filled with an incredible aroma…and by dinner, everyone is more than ready to dig in. We’re usually lucky if there’s a serving or two left over.
With eleven or so lambs going to the butcher in a couple of months, and a whole bunch of laying hens still needing to be butchered, we’re trying to clear out as much of last year’s meat as we can. I have a feeling we’re going to be keeping the crock pot and soup pot full for a while.