by George Collins » Tue Jan 01, 2013 10:46 pm
Today we put all of the sausage into the freezer. We ended up with 27 pounds of fresh sausage and 8 pounds of ground pork. The ground pork is something new to us and something recently learned of while doing research on pig farming in general.
Lolly, sage is on the list of things to try growing this year. Youngblood told me the other day that, when he was but a child, the worst whuppin a child's butt would ever tote was to damage the family sage plant.
Guy, as warm as temperatures in the 40s sound to you, it is now 61 degrees here. And that sir, is why you have heard of Virginia hams but never of Mississippi hams - the weather here is too unpredictable to reliably cure meat. To mitigate against this possibility, I have been curing all of the meat in coolers that were intended to be opened when 40 degrees or below and closed if/when the temperature went over 40 degrees. Yesterday morning the temperature started climbing and went over 50 degrees for most of the day and today we have been mostly over 60. We are predicted to drop below 40 again tomorrow night. That was too long a time for comfort so this morning, everything was transferred from the coolers outside to the fridge. The black walnuts that were being housed there for stratification are now outside. Hopefully they will be alright.
I opted not to try to cook out lard this year. Instead, I gave all of the remaining fat to a friend of mine who recently killed several deer and wants to try his hand at making deer sausage. I was out of time and out of freezer space so having a good friend that could put it to good use is a blessing. (Next year, after the Berky babies farrow, I hope to step up pork production. At that time, I will have a much better game plan going in and intend to, if possible, make sausage, apply cure and render lard the same day the hog is slaughtered.)
The same friend and his parents are to be our guests tonight for supper along with my parents. The menu for the evening is smoked ribs (from The One Pig), two smoked chickens (the last of those recently butchered), deviled eggs, cole slaw, corn dip, black eyed peas (seasoned with Youngblood's recently smoked bacon), Mexican cornbread, and bread pudding with white chocolate sauce (made by my momma and one of the finer desserts I've ever wrapped myself 'round).
When smoking ribs I always smoke chicken. The rationale being that if it goes uneaten, smoked chicken makes the best chicken salad ever.
I'm having a hard time right now controlling myself as the computer is within smelling distance of the kitchen. Worse, I intentionally ate light at both breakfast and supper to best season this evening's meal. I'm starting to think the seasoning might have been a wee bit overdone.
Matt, in another thread, you suggested I try making buckboard bacon. I think I have. Part of the meat that is now in cure is the loins. Historically, when we have had a hog processed, we would have some portion of the pork chops cured. We use them as we would cured ham. The current effort though is the first time we have tried doing such at home. I'll let you know how it turns out.
"Solve world hunger, tell no one." "The, the, the . . . The Grinch!"
"If you can't beat them, bite them."