Guinea Fowl - Crock Pot Recipe

Today I have been cooking a guinea fowl in the crock pot - mainly to see how it turns out but also in the hope of creating a new dish for us to all try. Although it is years since I have cooked one - it all comes back fairly quickly!

A guinea fowl is not like a chicken in that it is closer to it's wild cousins, has a completely different attitude and outlook on life and it's actually a useful animal. I remember them on the farm years ago, where they would behave like watch dogs alerting us to any foxes or strange goings-on.

Because they are very lean they also make a great addition to your Pagan Diet as well as give some other flavours and tastes in meals where you might have used chicken. Although the meat is mostly darker than domestic birds, it is far tastier.

I decided to cook this guinea fowl in the slow cooker in order to get the best flavour but also to ensure it wasn't tough in any way. I started out my adventure with 1 tablespoon of butter melting on the wood stove, then stirred in 1 tablespoon of spelt flour.

Next I added 1/4 cup of water to the butter mixture and kept stirring until it was all uniform looking. I placed this aside and prepared the bird for the crock pot. To do this I just washed and salted it inside and out and placed it on the bottom of the pot in 1 cup of boiling water.

Then I added the butter mixture and 1/4 cup of olive oil over top of the bird. Next I sprinkled 1 teaspoon each of dried sage and thyme and a few grains of ground black pepper. The slow cooker was on a high heat setting - this was left for the next 2 hours or so and then turned down to low.

Every hour I carefully basted the entire bird inside and out with the liquid in the bottom of the cooker and left it to simmer for another 3 hours. Once the meat was falling off the bones (each bird might be different depending on age and size) I turned it off to let it cool.

Now, there is lovely cooked guinea fowl meat for sandwiches, casserole, soup or stew or for just picking! My taste testers loved it added in to their chilli....

April

Guinea Fowl roasting in the crock pot

Wild Rice, Sweet Potato & Fig Dish

I am in the final week of my Master Cleanse and I am itching to cook something - anything!! It really must be a passion for me - because I just want to play around with tastes, textures and flavours to see what I come up with.

Today I decided to make a little meal for my daughter using just the things I had on hand - a large sweet potato, some wild rice mix (she was asking for rice) and figs. This combination of foods is rich and hearty as well as complementary to each other.

I started out baking the sweet potato in the oven while I cooked a small portion of wild rice in a saucepan. Then I chopped a shallot and some cloves of garlic. These I stir-fried in a little olive oil. Once the rice was cooking away I added some turmeric - mostly because I just love the smell and I think it always adds a nice touch to food.

Wild rice mix is really nice to make and not something I make all that often - I usually reserve this rice for special occasions. Of course the recipe I was working on today is a special side dish I want to serve with either turkey or duck over the holidays. 

Once the sweet potato was tender - I took it out of the oven and let it cool for a little while before peeling it and cutting into different sized pieces. I did the same with the figs - loosely chopped them to smaller bite sized bits.

Next, the rice was ready. I wanted to let things cool slightly so as not to be mushy when combined - so the rice was set aside while the shallot and garlic sautéd. 

Once everything was sitting cooling and ready - using a large enough deep bowl I gently added each ingredient - then a little salt and pepper as I folded this mixture over a few times to lightly mix it and to allow the flavours to combine.

It looks and smells lovely - and is great on the side with some fish or fowl or even on it's own with a feta cheese topping. 

April

Wild Rice, sweet potato and figs