Cracklin's

Merry Christmas!  We were in Oregon at my wife's family's home.  We needed some last minute lard to cook our turkey with, and we didn't have any.  We did have 25 pounds of unrendered pork fat and decided to make lard.  We chopped the fat and put it in a crockpot overnight.  Not only did it make us some great lard, but it left us with a whole mess of cracklin's.  Cracklin's are the by product of lard making. They are a crispy, salty treat.

What a wonderful visit.  We are headed off home tomorrow and back to our farm.  It'll be nice to get back to the animals, but it was also nice to have a break from the daily animal chores.  Our wonderful farm sitter handled all the chores for the few days we were out of town.

Whisper, one of our goats and one of our best milkers, injured her face right before we left.  Apparently she is fine, but I would like to see her for myself.

I hope this season finds you blessed with family, friends, and good food.  I know we enjoyed our cracklin's Christmas morning.

Orpans Thanksgiving

Every year we host a Thanksgiving dinner at our home for anyone and everyone who needs a place to go.  Whether it’s old friends who just want to share a meal or new friends who need a place to go.  We make it a point to invite people who can’t spend the holidays with family or don’t have family to visit.  We had our Orphans Thanksgiving today.

I’ll admit, we didn’t have many folks show up, but we were able to share a wonderful home cooked meal with a few new friends.  What a blessing to be able to share the bounty we have been blessed with. 

The ham was especially tasty.  We used a new butcher this year for our pigs and he did a great job.  We raise purebred Berkshire hogs which have a more marbled fat content.  In addition, we fed our pigs milk by products from our cheese making operation.  We’ve heard that milk fed pigs are among the best, and I would have to agree.

We’ll be having another Thanksgiving meal on Thursday with family.  Jenny’s family is traveling in from various parts of the Western United States. We are looking forward to sharing our home with family as well.

I may go out deer hunting in the morning.  It kind of depends on whether or not the weather is cold enough for the muddy ground to freeze.  Judging from the thermometer tonight it should be.  It would be nice to take a deer and add a hundred pounds of venison to the larder.  I’d like to make some venison salami among other things.  Either way, it’s a relaxing way to spend a few hours out in the field in the morning.  I’ll also be setting up my goose blind soon.  We’ve seen a few geese fly by and it’s probably getting to be about the right time of year. 

Come to the Feast.  We have been blessed with such abundance it only seems right to share it with others.  We invite others to come break bread at our table even as we have been invited to break bread at Christ’s table.

Blessings.

We Love Food

Food.  It is the focus of our lives.  We grow food.  We raise animals.  We milk goats.  We milk cows.  We gather eggs.  We sell food too.  Milk, cheese, eggs, and sometimes vegetables.  And, of course, we eat food.  We eat good food.  Not too much food.  Not processed food.  Just good, wholesome, and usually organic, local food. 

We eat lots and lots of vegetables.  But we also eat lots of meat and dairy.  We enjoy butter, lard, bacon, and sausage.  Usually from our own animals.  We eat raw milk cheeses.  Goats milk cheeses, cow’s milk cheeses, mostly of our own making.

We love to cook.  Today’s specialties we bacon wrapped dates and pecans.  (OK, so the dates and pecans weren’t local…)  We also made a wonderful pumpkin curry soup.  (That was local and mostly grown by us.)

I originally started writing a manifesto on why it’s so important to eat local and organic food.  It ended up sounding self-righteous and egotistical.  I believe in what I do, a large part of which revolves around how I choose to eat, but I don’t need to convince the world to eat the way we do.

I can, however, suggest some great foodie writers.  Michael Pollan is one.  Barbara Kingsolver, who wrote a wonderful book called “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle”, is another.  The book I’m reading by Joel Salatin is also fantastic.

Anyway, I hope you have been blessed with a good, warm, home-cooked meal with your family tonight.

Sausage Making

The first of many rounds of sausage making. With the venison from this years deer and some pork fat I had in the freezer I made a simple breakfast sausage. I'm on a mission to finish processing the harvest and cleaning the house. Oh, and cleaning the barnyard too. I've vowed to stay home all weekend. No hunting or fishing. The second picture is one of Luna playing after the ducks had finished flying. She is such an amazing dog. Unfortunately there were no ducks for Luna to retrieve that day.

I have just been amazed at how blessed I am to have such a wonderful job. I had a great meeting with the parents of one of the children I work with. To watch a student go from a non-reader to a reader in such a short amount of time. He begs me to read with him when we are supposed to be doing math. It is hard to resist such a request.

I'm also going to spend some time with friends this weekend. Probably go to Mass with a friend too. I've been thinking a lot about my spirituality this week. Bouncing ideas off a friend of mine. Trying to find my way on that spiritual journey I am on. It has been a long and winding road, that's for sure. Until next time, stay mindful. Mindful of the beauty of every moment and every thought and every action.

Puppies and goose meatballs

After a long day of antics, Luna has finally gone to sleep. She was so wild. Chew, bite, run, play. Her favorite game is to chase the real duck wing. I saved a bunch of duck and goose wings from hunting season this year and she loves them.
We had a glorious meal of goose meatball spaghetti tonight. Sorry no recipe pictures. I borrowed the recipe from Hunter, Angler, Gardener, Cook. I made a few modifications, but essentially it was the same. I baked the meatballs instead of deep frying them. I bake my meatballs in a casserole with tomato sauce to cover halfway up the sides. 350 degrees. Excellent recipe and an excellent meal.

Simple venison and greens

O.K., so this guy keeps taking pictures of his dinner. Why? Well, I guess because I would be interested in what other homesteaders and hunters were eating too. So, this is a simple 30 minute meal. The most complex part is getting the brown rice down right. I think it's just practice and probably depends a lot on the rice you've got. I use 2 1/2 cups of water per cup of rice. A little salt and oil. Simmer covered for 25 minutes. Simmer uncovered for a further 5 minutes. Then turn off the heat but leave the pan on the burner. Good luck.

Simple venison and greens. In this case, Swiss chard. But you could use Collard greens or spinach too. Fry up six strips of bacon in a large pan. Take them out to drain. Transfer half the bacon grease to another pan. Fry your 1/2 inch thick venison steaks in the bacon grease over medium high heat. In the other pan put your whole bunch of washed and spun Swiss chard. A little moisture on the greens is important for the cooking. I cut the thickest end part of the red ribs off of the chard, leaving the ribs that are part of the leaves. It's all edible though if you want to cook it a little longer. Throw your chard into the grease at medium heat and they will quickly wilt. Cook them down a bit and add a few dashes of red wine vinegar. Chop up your bacon and throw that back in with the chard.

By this time you've made your salad, your venison is done, the rice is perfect and you're ready to eat, right? Don't worry, it takes time to get comfortable in the kitchen. Just make your mistakes and learn as you go.

This is a savory, quick, and reasonably healthy meal.

Applesauce and other random topics

Goose season is over here, but here as a fantastic picture of Colleen all bundled up for hunting in the pasture. The flyway doesn't go right across our land and I think I may search for neighbors willing to let us try their land next year. We'll see.



I was sick yesterday and spent most of the day curled up with the cats. This is Maggie, the princess of the house. She curled up beneath a cowboy hat. I had planned on starting on barn projects, but physical labor was out of the question. We need to shovel out a bunch of very old manure from the place where the pigs are going to go. We also need to fork out about five tons of moldy old hay from the center of the barn. There are owl pellets, cow pies, and who knows what all in this deep layer of hay. I think we are going to hire some local unemployed friends and acquaintances to help. Pay a reasonable wage in cash, plus a farm lunch. Bake up a ham and what all. One problem is that there is no easy access to the area below the loft where the hay is piled. We'll have to fork it on to tarps, drag it through a side door, and then on to the loader on the tractor. Hard, dirty, sweaty work. Then I need to put up some windows and doors and patch some holes in the sides of the barn. Lots to do before we get goats in spring.

We are starting to get people interested in pre-ordering half and whole hogs this year. Orders for eggs are higher than we can supply. We've had people ask about large orders of meat chickens, but we have to figure out how to do that legally. We will be ordering seeds on Wednesday. Things are coming along.


And finally, applesauce. We canned a batch of apple sauce from the tail end of our fall apples from the orchard. It turned out splendidly. We still have enough for another batch of apple sauce or apple butter. Canning is so satisfying an activity. We still have a bunch of frozen tomatoes that we couldn't get canned in the fall. We need to make them into tomato sauce.

We went puppy supply shopping last night. The puppy comes home on Saturday. We can't wait. It should be an interesting event introducing her to the cats.

Sick or not, I plan on teaching today.

You can't beat bacon and garlic

Quick food? Comfort food? Healthy food? For a quick meal last night I improvised with three of my favorite ingredients. Bacon, garlic, and wild game. The bacon was from a whole hog we bought locally, the garlic was "Chesnok Red" from our garden, and the goose was shot in the pasture behind our house. It was simple and quick. I cut the goose into strips, wrapped it around whole peeled garlic cloves, wrapped that in bacon, and stuck a toothpick through it. Baked in a 350 degree oven until the bacon was done, but the goose was medium rare. I don't know how to tell you to estimate the cooking time, only that you don't want to over-cook wild game. Better to err on the side of too little time as long as the bacon is done.

It was wonderful to pop one of these treats into your mouth. You only needed to eat a couple as the goose meat is so dense it fills you up quickly. Roasted garlic is always a treat, and anything is better wrapped in bacon.

The meal was topped off by a large salad. Balancing our the weight of the bacon and goose.

Clay Pot Cooking

Have you experienced clay pot cooking? It is a must. The food is cooked in a clay pot that is soaked in water and then baked in a fast oven. All manner of foods can be cooked in this way from breads and deserts to chicken and seafood. Follow the directions carefully for your clay pot and always start with a cold oven. Last night we made clay pot chicken. The recipe is adapted from the recipe "beggar's chicken" in the book "The Complete Guide to Claypot Cooking" by Bridget Jones.

Take 8 "bone-in" chicken thighs and score them across the top. Marinate in:
8 Tbs. soy sauce
1/4-1/2 cup red wine
2 Tbs. toasted sesame oil
heaping 1/2 tsp. five spice powder
1/2 tsp. white pepper
4 cloves finely chopped garlic
2 tsp. grated ginger root

cover chicken with marinade and let stand for at least 5 hours.
Soak clay pot for 15 minutes in cold water.
put the chicken and marinade in the clay pot and cover with lid.
Put the covered clay pot in a cold oven and set for 475 degrees
Cook 35 minutes, then remove lid and cook for an additional 10 to 15 minutes.

We serve with rice or pasta and a green salad. It is a heavenly use of inexpensive cuts of chicken. We buy the bulk "family-pack" of thighs for almost nothing.

We will be raising and butchering at least 25 "meat" birds next spring. We plan on getting the "freedom-ranger" variety available from J.M. Hatchery or a similar free range meat variety.

The commercial Cornish Cross meat birds don't appeal to us as a meat flock bird, as they gain weight so quickly that they are not able to wander around and act like chickens.

Merry Christmas!

A beautiful cold, crisp, sunny, winter day here on the homestead. We went goose hunting together this morning. Colleen brought her knitting. Kind of made for a funny image. Later we had a meeting about a business plan and vision for the farm. We discussed how to make the farmer's market our "summer jobs" when the teaching year is over. We came up with a list of what we wanted to grow and sell. Both vegetables and value added products. We narrowed down the list of names for the farm to just a couple.

Then we had a beautiful roast duck for Christmas dinner.


Duck a l'orange. First, I stuffed the duck with a combination of apples, onions, and celery. Put it in a roasting pan covered with cheesecloth dipped in lard. And baked covered at 350 for about 45 minutes.

While it was baking, I put on some garden Acorn squash and made the sauce. To make the sauce I combined,

2 tbsp. melted butter with,
2 tbsp. flour

turned off heat and added,
zest of one orange
2 tsp. sugar
1/8 tsp. of mustard powder
3/4 tsp. of salt

stirred and added
2/3 cup orange juice
1/3 cup chicken broth

heated on medium heat until thickened, then stirred in
1/4 cup peach jam. (it was supposed to be orange marmalade, but we were out of it)

Stirred until jam melted, turned off heat, and covered.

After the bird had been in the oven for 45 minutes, I took off the cheesecloth and the cover on the roaster. Basted every ten minutes with the sauce. Cooked for another 20 minutes or so. Until bird was tender.

It was marvelously tender for a wild duck. Not "gamey" tasting at all.



Served with garden squash from our root cellar, and a salad.

Merry Christmas to all. Hope you had as lovely a day as we did.

duck trick and steelhead ready for the smoker

Went goose hunting this morning and ended up shooting a drake mallard. It was beautiful. Four ducks flew by my goose spread. I grabbed my duck call, gave a few quick calls, and they spun around, bowed up and came into my spread. I love it when the calling actually works.

We "wet" plucked the duck and will be making roast duck a l'orange for Christmas eve dinner. When wet plucking, you dip the duck into simmering water before plucking the feathers. After you've plucked as best you can, you still end up with a bunch of really fine feathers that you can't quite get to. The magic tool for their removal is a propane torch. Just a few quick passes with the torch will singe off the remaining hair like feathers without burning the skin. And ready for the oven.

Here is the steelhead ready for the smoker. It's smoking as I write. Looking forward to sampling some at about midnight. I was going to go steelheading again tomorrow, but the forecast is for constant rain all day, so I think I'll take a pass.

Quince jam and smoked steelhead

Colleen canned 30+ jars of quince jam tonight. I'm quite sure we don't need that many, but they will make unique gifts. It tastes really good. what, you might ask, is a quince? It is in the rose family and is related to apples. They are more well known in Spain and marmalade was originally made from quince.

While Colleen was slaving away in the kitchen, I was off steelhead fishing with a friend. Actually, we enjoy canning, so I wouldn't really call it slaving away. There was a lot of ice in the river and it was hard to find access that didn't involve scrambling across ice floes. Not wanting to get dunked in the frigid water, we played it safe and did the best we could. I didn't catch any fish, but my friend did. As he had to leave town, he gave me the fish to smoke. It put it in the rub tonight, and it will go into the smoker tomorrow. I use a rub of:

1 cup kosher salt
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
Tbsp. black pepper

Lay the fillet skin side down in 1/3 of the rub. Pour a 1/3 of the rub on the flesh side, which is now facing up. Lay the second fillet flesh side down on that. And sprinkle the rest of the rub on that. The press with weight in the fridge for 24 hours. rinse. Pat dry. Let air dry for 1-3 hours. Then into the smoker at 150 degrees and apply smoke. (Thanks to Alton Brown for the recipe)

I'll let you know how it turns out.

Kapusta!

Kapusta! A holiday tradition in my family. Kapusta is simply the Polish word for cabbage. There are as many Polish recipes for cabbage as there are families from Poland. I grew up with my great aunt making this recipe every Thanksgiving. It was my favorite of all the Thanksgiving treats. I now make it every Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner. It is, like many good things in life, quite simple.

1/2 pound bacon
Large Polish Sausage
1 head cabbage
1 quart jar of sauerkraut
vinegar
sugar
salt

Fry up your bacon and drain. Set bacon aside. Take your cabbage and chop it into 1/4 inch strips. Pile the cabbage into a big stainless steel pot with a cup of water and cook down at medium heat. When the cabbage has softened, add a splash of vinegar and a little sugar. Stir in the jar of sauerkraut. Chop your sausage into 1/4 inch slices and throw in the pot. Chop the bacon and toss that in too. Cook on medium heat for another 15 minutes. Enjoy hot!