Fried Chicken

On the long drive home from North Carolina my friend and I got talking about food.  Well, we talked about food a lot the whole week but specifically we discussed fried chicken.  She raved about her mother's fried chicken; it was simple and good and better than any commercially available fried chicken.  I decided to try it.  Emails were sent to her mother to make sure we had the correct instructions and last night, I made wonderful fried chicken.

Chicken, flour, salt and pepper.  Deep fried in oil and butter, 10 minutes a side.  That's it.

I have to admit, I have not really deep fried much.  It's just not something my mother did so I never really learned to do it or to incorporate it into my repertoire of go-to meals.  This wasn't hard, but it did take a while.  I'd have to time it better in the future, I think.  After the chicken was done I tossed potatoes and sweet potatoes in the oil and made french fries.  I also used this recipe to make cole slaw but I added half a teaspoon of celery seed which made it really nice.  Yum!  The cabbage and all the potatoes were from the farm share; I have 2 heads of cabbage left, plus turnips, leeks, and various squashes and pumpkins.

Since I cut the breast meat off the bones and had the back bone of the chicken still in the package, I tossed them in a pot with some water and vegetable scraps, salt, pepper, and bay.  This yielded 9 quarts of chicken stock which I will likely can in the next few days.  Just not today!