FUNYM?

It seems the small butchers have been run out of the smoking/curing business by new regulations. Of course those regs seem to be written by the big packers with the intent to run the little guys out of business.

In any event, when I got my two pigs butchered I couldn't get back any cured hams.

Maybe a blessing in disguise.

This uncured pork roast from the hind leg weights just under 5 lbs. Its in a freezer bag with a mixture of water, brown sugar and curing salt. I put this in the fridge for 48 hours, and turned the bag every time I walked past the fridge.

Then I made a dry rub with pepper, garlic, cumin, fennel, chili powder, coriander, allspice and some more curing salt - and rubbed this into all sides of the roast and put it back in the fridge for another two days.

For a final treatment, I mixed a glaze with Jack Daniels, honey, and black pepper and smeared this on just before putting on the smoker with charcoal and hickory chips.

I smoked it real slow - just over 200 deg F - until it reached 155 deg internal temperature - then let it rest for about 10 minutes to finish cooking up to 160 deg on its own. It took about 6 hours, but it was -5 deg C outside - I expect it might have cooked faster if it had been warmer out.

This was my first ever curing/smoking meat and it was SOOOOO good, I can't believe it.


SVFM!

My Almond Butter

Here's my first kick at making almond butter.

(Mmmmm. Almond butter.)

2 cups whole almonds

weight of almonds

warm in oven at  325

for 12 - 15 minutes

when cooled put in hopper

place dish to catch butter

crank, and crank, and crank

about 15 minutes

weight of butter

residual in mill

residual cleaned out

residual saved or mixed in butter

done!

My net loss from beginning weight was 20 grams (the part of residual I didn't manage to scrape out of the mill).

I had a TBSP of my new almond butter in my morning oatmeal along with my usual spoon of Muscavado (unrefined) brown sugar.

I bought my almonds at bulk barn for CAN$14.99/lb.  My (meagre) saving for making my own was about 55 cents over what I pay for my favourite brand at the grocery store, including the cost of my waste.

I like the taste of this batch of almonds. Now what I look forward to is trying different varieties of almonds from different countries.

All on my quest for the perfect taste!

Things with cranks

I must be addicted to things with cranks.

I ordered myself this Christmas present, which arrived to my great excitement yesterday via the nice FedEx guy.

Its a Wonder Mill Junior. It looks like plastic but its actually very heavy cast, just like a sock knitter. It comes with two sets of grinding wheels - one set for milling flour and the other set for making nut butters.

I've been trying to eat very healthy these past few years (um, recent booze laden Christmas Cake notwithstanding). Almond butter is one of my favourite good-fat foods. But I've noticed a huge difference amongst the different brands that each claim to be 100% almonds with no additives. My fav is from Nuts to You that I get in the health food section of my local grocer. Sometimes they are out and I've tried the store's own Blue Lable product and also the offering at the local Bulk Barn. Seriously, its hard for me to believe they are all made from the same nut. Or food group.

And since I like to be as self sufficient as possible, I've decided to give making my own a go, with hopes it turns out to my liking.

The bonus is the other set of wheels for making flour. I don't use a lot of flour, but I'll be chuffed to try making my own whole grain versions.

Feeding the beast...

Feeding my annual Christmas Cake. Baked last week of November. 'Fed' Cointreau every day, then kept wrapped in gauze and saran wrap.

Apples on top are to keep cake moist. Supposed to be discarded after but they will be about 120 proof, so maybe excellent snack or killer apple crisp.

Shakshuka

The livestock, the garden, and knitting have kept me busier than usual this summer.

The garden seems to feature winners and not-winners each year, with no two years seemingly the same.

I always get a lot of tomatoes, but for quite a few years I've had a black fungal growth on the base of most of the beefsteak tomatoes. And many of them have been gnarly and misformed. Not this year. I'm drowning in excellent results!

There are only so many tomato sandwiches one can eat. (I don't know what the number is - I haven't hit it yet!) Gazpacho is a lunch time favourite too. And DW cans up a lot of stewed tomatoes and salsa for the winter.

But I found a new recipe to try on Pinterest the other day and tried it out for supper last night. It was wonderful! Its a Jewish recipe called Shakshuka - an 'all in one pan' dish; in this case, my cast iron skillet.

This is my hearty serving for one hungry farmer version.

Start with a little olive oil on medium heat and put in a chopped white onion. When softened up, add a chopped garlic.

After several minutes, add a chopped green pepper (also from the garden).

After about 5 minutes more, add three good sized tomatoes, coarsely chopped.

When this has worked itself into a stew, about another 5 minutes, add a little cumin, paprika, cayenne and sugar - I used about 1/4 tsp of each, and a bit of salt and pepper.

When all that is reduced by half (ish) crack in a couple of eggs fresh from the chicken coop.

Turn heat down, cover, and simmer for about 15 minutes - for firm eggs - more or less according to how you want the eggs done.

Then - into my favourite pottery man sized bowl, sprinkled with a little Parmesan and parsley and chow down with a side of warm naan bread.

Yes we have no bananas

I like bananas, but they generally don't like me so I don't eat them often.

But I stumbled on this idea in Pinterest and coudn't resist.

Saute sliced (not overly ripe) bananas in butter until they're browned.

Put in a bowl. Wisk a tablespoonish of honey with a tsp of water and put into the emptied pan, but off the heat. Mix in the dregs that remain in the pan and pour over the warm bananas.

OMG this is good!

The potential for booze with the honey is unlimited.

OK, maybe some fresh whipped cream on top.

Dutch Baby

I looked for a 'different' kind of pancake recipe to make for my Shrove Tuesday supper, and found this version of Dutch Baby on a Martha Stewart video, via Huff Post.

This made a good man sized one dish supper. Would probably do for two at lunch or as one component of a larger meal.

While preheating oven to 425, and preheating cast iron fry pan on the stove.... mix in a blender 3 eggs, 3/4 cup milk, 1/4 cup sugar (I used Stevia substitute), 1/2 cup flour, 1/4 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp vanilla.

Melt 2 tsp butter in the pan, remove from stove, pour in the batter and put in the oven for 20 minutes.

I didn't have any trouble getting this out of the pan onto a plate in one piece. ('cuz my pan is well seasoned)

Sprinkle with fresh squeezed lemon and sugar (me again with the Stevia). I also grated a little zest from the lemon.

This was REALLY good! Kind of a three way cross between a pancake, a crepe, and a Yorkshire Pudding. The quick n' easy part is really good too.

My friend Abby (maple syrup maker at the farmers' market) makes Maple Sugar that I usually have on hand to sprinkle on fresh fruit - I ran out last week - would have definitely used instead of Stevia for the sprinkle part.

Eggs for Lunch

As a creature of habit I have a home made Egg McMuffin for lunch most week days. Some days I like to change it up. Days like today that are cold. (And I'm out of English Muffins.)

This is for one and I based it on a recipe I found online via Huff Post.

Oven on to 400.

About a cup of sliced mushrooms (today I had Crimini on hand), some chopped onion (today, red) a bit of chopped garlic and a few sun dried tomatoes from the garden, a little salt and pepper. Sauteed for several minutes in butter, until there is no more liquid coming from the mushrooms. 

I use a fair bit of coconut oil, or extra virgin olive oil for sauteing, but I find butter caramelizes the best, so for mushrooms (or fresh fish) its butter all the way for me .

Put in a small, sprayed, ovenproof casserole.

Two eggs (right from the hen house!)

Bake for about 15 minutes.

Put some cheese on the top. Today, two slices of Provolone and bake about 5 minutes more.

Let it cool for about 5 minutes.

I find that fresh eggs - especially REALLY fresh - take quite a bit longer to cook. I judge when I check to put the cheese on that the whites are pretty much cooked and the yolks are still looking runny.  Of course you would adjust if you like your eggs runny - I prefer this dish with the yokes cooked right through.

I made this one day last week too. I used a few fresh green onions instead of the red. I chopped them fairly fine and just put them into the fry pan when the mushrooms were nearly done. Gave a nice bit of crunch.

Home Made English Muffins

Who knew that English Muffins are actually a fried bread? Not me.
I've been eating these since forever. In the last few years I switched over to whole wheat version but was still a little unhappy with the additives.

I found this recipe of Honey Oat English Muffins while sloffing around on different blogs.

I found this set of frying rings cheap on eBay and was off to the races:

The first time I followed Emily's recipe as closely as I could. I'm not sure what the difference between White Whole Wheat and Whole Wheat are so I used what I had in the pantry - Robin Hood Bread Whole Wheat flour.


For my next batch, instead of mixing in a bowl, I tried this:

Our bread machine has a dough setting and I customized that a little to suit this recipe, and I also inserted a 30 minute warm rest at the beginning the cycle (which I read somewhere was a good thing to do with whole wheat recipes in general).


I also substituted Spelt Flakes for the Oatmeal which raised the protein and fibre levels some.


I also added the ingredients to the pan slightly differently than for the bowl, ie all liquids first, yeast last.


As you can see, I get a very good rise of the dough, and the bonus here is that the recipe now gives me 16 muffins instead of 12.

I (sadly) don't have a gas stove. (Very sadly.) And only 4 rings - so I worked in batches of 4 in a frying pan, 5 minutes a side at level 4, and then into the over @ 350 for 10 minutes on a cookie sheet. I lay a piece of tin foil over top while in the oven to keep from getting to browned.


This timing works very conveniently - for one batch is in the over for time it takes to do the next batch in the fry pan.


I just leave the rings on long for a minute or so after I press the dough to shape.


At 16 muffins, this works out to about 120 calories a piece. Pretty good!

I make a home made Egg McMuffin with one of these for lunch almost every weekday. 

Mmmm. Good!

Handspun by Eva

This is a handpun I got from my friend Eva a while back that I had parked and forgot to knit!

It is 50% Merino 50% Bamboo, 175g/429m. With the generous yardage I felt confident there would be enough for a pair of size Large, even with being on the heavier side of fingering weight.

I love the colours, as usual, and in particular I like the effect of stranding different colours together. 

On my monitor, there's quite a variation in colour tones amongst the photos. The top photo, in the skein, is Eva's from the original listing on Etsy. It is actually the closest to true of what I'm looking at. The overall grey-blue tint seems absent from my own photos.

I'm still in the midst of lambing here at the farm, and to boot had to get a new computer. I'm fiddling about between lambs trying to get the hang of Windows8 and to upgrade all my software that doesn't want to play nice with the new operating sys. 

I've gone back to a desktop PC, even though so many reviews have pronounced them dead, archaic, passe, and long gone. My last 'puter was a laptop and I was sure it would be truly portable. But experience prooved otherwise - I have so many things plugged into it, that unless I'm going on a trip, I rarely move it. As it result it actually occupies more real estate on my desk and a true desktop.

Miraculously, I bought the new desktop before the laptop completely died, so I haven't been in my usual horror filled panic about retrieving years of lost data. Rather, I'm poking away shifting things over, housekeeping and discarding as I get a moment here and there between lambings. 

Early mornings and late nights in the lambing barn have also prompted me to work on another skill:

Double shot of espresso, 4 oz frothed skim milk and a dash of cinnamon on the top. Who needs sleep!

Gob Smacked

Back in the 60's, when DW was married to some other guy, she got a set of pots and pans from an outfit she describes as 'more Fuller Brush Man than Tupperware Party'.

The lid to one of the pots got damaged in a move (last move was 23 yrs ago).

I was cleaning up the pot cupboard during one of our many blizzards this winter and became reacquainted with the damaged lid.

I can still make out the name of the manufacturer on the bottom of the pots, so I decided to scope out eBay and see if I could find a replacement. I searched 'Vacumatic' and found one pot only, and its lid was the wrong size.

In a shear stroke of 'why didn't I think of that before' I googled it. Found several North American links, and followed one to Ottawa, ON.

I emailed to see if I could order a lid.

No need to order, says the guy at the other end. It's covered under the 50 year warranty.

It's in the mail.

Warranty.

50 years.

FIFTY.

I'm absolutely gob smacked!

Goat Yoghurt-O

Well you can't get yoghurt much thicker than this.

After experimenting with a number of ways to thicken up goat yoghurt, here is my last result.

I used Knox Gelatin. As per the pkg instructions I used two packets, made a bit of a slurry with half cup of the milk, added half cup boiling water to the slurry, then mixed that into the balance of my warmed quart of goat milk. Then I added my yoghurt starter - few scoops of Astro Natural Balkan Style - and put in the yoghurt maker for 8 hours.

When I took the batch out it was still very runny, but overnight in the fridge it set. Just like Jello.

So, no straining required to get this thick treat.

The texture,however, is not the same as Greek style yoghurt obtained by straining. I'd actually describe it as a creme caramel type texture more than a Jello type. And with a little maple syrup drizzled over the top, it tasted a lot like creme caramel too.

Still, I'd have to say that my taste preference is still with a 2% cows milk yoghurt made only with starter culture, strained overnight to reduce volume by at least half, and then with a spoon of fresh local honey or maple syrup.