NYC Chickens

Where do we keep the “ladies”?

We’re lucky to have access to a strip of space alongside the Queens Midtown Tunnel in which the birds have free range. Lucky is subjective, as the noise, soot and traffic aren’t so nice. The run is almost 100′ long, with their coop at the far end.

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The trees include a couple of figs and an apple tree, all planted 20+ years ago.

Friggin’ Winter

So after the city looked like this:

The girls finally made it out of their coop to eat a little spaghetti.

It's 102 in NYC!! Who wants some cold watermelon?

Here is our first teeny tiny egg. Its called a witch egg or fairy egg. I love it!! its about an inch long. We haven’t cracked it open yet but I hear it probably won’t have a yolk. It’s pictured next to one of our average sized egg.

Dust Bath

This is a video of one of the girls taking a dust bath. They do this to control possible mites. The dirt suffocates the parasites. In the background you can hear the NYC midtown traffic

Roses and blue skies in the courtyard

Roses in the courtyard

Where to find chicken food in Manhattan?

We usually either drive to upstate New York or out on Long Island to get chicken food. Big pain in the butt! So we asked our local petco if they could order us some. No such luck. Then we asked our local pet store (real local, we don’t even have to cross a street to get there). He made a call to his supplier and the answer was yes!! Now we can get a 50 lbs bag of layer pellets from around the corner. We paid $20 for it here, upstate or out in the island we paid $15. Not too bad of a price increase when you consider the convenience.

What's for Dinner?

How about a nice light and healthy grilled shrimp Greek salad with grilled ramps?

Recipe: Grilled shrimp Greek salad with grilled Ramps

Ingredients

1 cucumber
1/2 lb shrimp
2 heads romaine lettuce
kalamata olives
1 small red onion
feta cheese
greek yogurt
juice of 1/2 of a lemon
1 bunch ramps

Instructions

Wash and peel cucumber. Cut in half lengthwise. Scrape out seeds using a spoon, discard seeds. Cut cucumber into small cubes. Place into a colander and sprinkle generously with salt.
While cucumbers are draining clean the shrimp.
Season the shrimp with salt and pepper and cayenne (optional). Season the ramps with olive oil and salt and pepper.
Grill the shrimp and ramps.
Wash and chop the lettuce. Cut the red onion.
Rinse the cucumbers in the colander to remove the salt. Dry with a paper towel. Mix them with the greek yogurt, the lemon juice, and a drizzle of olive oil. Stir well.
Put your salad together. Lettuce, olives, feta, red onion, shrimp. Top with your yogurt/cucumber dressing (tzatziki). Add the ramps to the plate.

Cooking time (duration): 20 minutes

Diet type: Pescatarian

Diet (other): Low calorie

Number of servings (yield): 2

Meal type: dinner

Culinary tradition: Greek

Microformatting by hRecipe.

Yogurt Cheese

Yogurt cheese is by far the easiest cheese to make. We took a quart of Stonyfield Organic Plain fat free yogurt and poured it into a butter muslin (cheese cloth but more tightly woven) lined colander which was placed over a bowl. You need to use at least 4 sheets of the butter muslin to make sure you don’t lose too much of the yogurt to the whey. The bowl is used to catch the whey while it drains. Tie up all corners of the butter muslin, we used a rubber band. Let it drain in the fridge over night. In the morning place teaspoon sized scoops of the cheese into your hands and roll it to form balls. Place in a sterilized jar. We sprinkled fresh oregano, fresh rosemary and fresh thyme along with freshly ground sea salt and pepper. Fill the jar with extra virgin olive oil and cap. Then let it sit in the fridge for at least one night. Enjoy your cheese with a fresh baguette!!

Seedlings

This year we ordered seeds from www.seedrack.com. They are on the kitchen counter under a Sunshine Systems GrowSpot 15 Watt LED lamp on a timer – 18 hours on / 6 hours off. We have some pretty random things growing. These include jalapenos, white hot habaneros, all sorts of tomatoes, money plant and best of all Bhut Jolokia (aka Ghost Pepper). This pepper is measured on the Scoville heat unit scale as over one million. Whereas the habanero is around 350,000 Scoville units. According to the Guinness book of world records it is the hottest pepper in the world!!