Hello!  This is definitely my last entry on the chicken experience…I actually had a dream (bad) last night that I was in a hotel room and there were chickens running amok after me.  Gnome says I have chicken in the brain (?medical term) and that it is best that I stop eating chicken for a while. (Or should I play number 22 in lotto??!!).

Okay, so I have pictures this time!  Gnome dug two pits; one for bread and one for chicken.

I made the bread with 3 parts flour and 1 part oats and placed it in a greased cast-iron pot.  We aimed for 45 minutes but at 22 minutes, I sniffed the air and smelt some burning.  We quickly opened it up and the upper crust was burnt.  Nevertheless, the bread was cooked perfectly to a hot fluffiness.  We cut the top part off and juggled pieces around to get the freshly baked bread into our mouths.  Oooh scrumptious hot bread…

Next time, we will bake the bread for 15 minutes and Gnome says we should put raisins in it for something different.

And, we did the potatoes in the usual way; put in paper bags soaked in water and then placed under shallow coals for about 45 to 60 minutes. The skin gets hard on the outside like a shell and the coals give it a charcoal flavour.

The chicken; this time it was a smaller 5lb chicken and our estimate of 60 minutes was a bit too much so the skin got slightly burnt.  It was still very, very tasty and dripping with juice and flavour.  The test stuffing was composed of mashed potato, carrots, shiitake mushrooms and water chestnuts.  We also added raisins since Gnome’s mother suggested that some dried fruits would go very well; this was a very nice addition.  The stuffing was a success and absorbed the flavour of the chicken very well.

We think that it should be 10 minutes cooking time per 1lb of chicken so the 5lb chicken should only need about 45 to 50 minutes next time.  We also halved unpeeled onions and placed them around the chicken…these caramelized (??burnt really to be honest with you) too much but still tasted good.  The onion was so so soft that it could be scooped out of the onion shell.

Verdict: we are getting quite confident at cooking with coals…it is practice, practice, practice as per usual.  Here are some (coffee table  magazine) pictures for you to look at so that you can live vicariously through the Munchkin and Gnome Blog (Ha-Ha!!).

Okay, this ends the chicken experience and I will endeavour to write on a different topic and then get funny dreams about that too…

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