August 4, 2018
Yummy Harvest
Primrose (Christina’s 4-year-old Aussie mix) is waiting by the stove while we walk in and out. Nothing is cooking there yet, but she knows this is harvest day, and she knows Rebeccah’s special treat is to fry up livers in butter. Mom likes them, but it started as a treat for the doggies.
Funny how they know. Sheba (our family’s 11-year-old Aussie mix) pretends she’s too old to move and half-wags her tail from her favorite spot in the house – curled up on top of the air vent in the den. She strategically puts herself in the room where most people congregate, next to the shoe shelf so as they are leaving she can shoot them with sad eyes to see if she can guilt anyone into talking her outside. Sheba perks up each time one of the kids comes in the back door, but since no one is carrying the big canning pot yet, she knows it’s still sleeping time.
In I come with the canning pot – Louis has decided to barbecue the chickens, but only three fit on the grill, so the fourth and all the trimmings are in that pot. Usually, all the chickens are in the pot to be dissected, wrapped, and put away. The gizzards and hearts are wrapped and frozen (I’ll fry them next time we have fried chicken). Today’s harvest was tender young chickens and the preferred method of cooking is grilling or baking, whole. So the fourth is wrapped and frozen. This leaves the trimmed skins and livers. The skins are saved for broth (I’ll add the bones and whatever trimmings from the birds being barbecued and simmer with some seasonings, this round should net about 2 to 3 quarts of “concentrated” broth.)
Rebeccah takes control of the livers. Now Sheba and Prim are sitting by the stove, wagging their tails and almost begging. They know that stuff is going in their bowl. Livers don’t freeze well. They are best fresh. The only one in the household who likes liver is Mom (me), but I don’t like to eat a ton of them. So I’ll take a few ounces and leave the rest for the pups.
Finally! Rebeccah is done (it really only takes about three minutes, but looking at the dogs, you’d think they were waiting for years). She rinses the pan in just enough water to make sure all the yummy goop is washed into the dog bowls and splits the contents of the pan between the two dogs. They’ll get all the skins and other meat bits off the bones after I’ve boiled and strained the broth the next day too, but fried livers are their every-two-month treat, and they LOVE it.
Our theory is that Prim realizes the chickens are the liver treat source and therefore protects them jealously from any other animal – but she’s never hurt a chicken because she likes the finished product.
Yummy barbecue for us, yummy treat for our canine protectors.
Thanks for reading!
Type at you later…
~Nancy Tart