Just another Day on the Farm

Deluxe Potato Pancakes..With Rabbit Bacon..Recipe

Posted on January 12, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

Well the rabbit bacon is finally ready! So its time to come up with wonderful new recipes to use it up over the next few days.

Its a family tradional to make potato pancakes, and I know that we do it a bit different then many of the recipies online as my mother never used flour.. her most basic potato pancakes was grated potato and onion, fried till crisp on both sides in a cast iron pan about inch and a bit thick, the outside crunchy and the inside soft and thick..

Her deluxe version meant that you diced up bacon and cooked it up a bit and added it in the potato/onion and then repeats as above, on a very speical days, she would put some grated old sharp cheese and diced green on top to serve! This is a very heavy and rich dish but its so GOOD!

Today’s version is a just a touch healthier versin of her deluxe one..

Rabbit Bacon Potato Pancakes.

1 side saddle of rabbit bacon, (or about four slices of regular bacon) diced up
1 med size onion-Peeled and grated
1 Large Stalk of Celery-Grated or finely diced
A quarter of turnip (either the white or the yellow kind), peeled and grated
2 large potato’s, peeled and grated.
Enjoy fat to fry in

I did the the rabbit bacon till it was a bit browned, then I mixed it in with the rest that were all mixed together and into the fry pan to cook till done, this will make a four person dish..

Rending down Rabbit Leaf Fat

Posted on January 12, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

Lets just say that my big bucks that I raised up not just for meat but for full proper winter coats on them, were fat! FAT! they are free feed and Dh does not believe in giving out the ration on the bag, he filled the self-feeder, I often have to put my females on a diet for a few weeks before breeding if they have to much space inbetween as they also can get to fat to get in kit.

Needless to say, the amount of leaf fat in the rabbits I butchered out was high and I could not quite resist snagging it and putting it aside to render out.. after all Leaf fat (the fat that is inside the main body and around the kidney’s/loin is considered the cream of the crop in terms of pork, figured it should be the same for rabbit.

It went into a steel bowl that was put into a snow bank to provide chill on the butcher day and then into the fridge, it was cut into peices and allowed to simmer out the fats, then strained and cooled..

The plan was or is? to use the lard to make the dough to make a Rabbit Pot Pie, cuz that is just cool, rabbit fat in the pie dough to go with the rabbit pie..

Now a few things to note, first, the rendered lard is off-color, very, very soft, even being kept in the fridge and melts almost on contact with human temp, it has a soft lard flavour, this is not a lard that I can see having good keeping quality at room temp.

Posted in frugal | Tagged Rendering Rabbit Fat, Rendering Rabbit Leaf Lard, Using Rabbit Fat | 4 Comments

Ten Dollar a week Challange -Callie’s Update and links..

Posted on January 11, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

http://backyardfarmsto.blogspot.ca/2013/01/10-grocery-challenge.html

Farmgal over at Just Another Day on the Farm came up with this challenge last year and it’s pretty much like it sounds; for the month of January we’ll try to spend only $10/wk on groceries. Canadian Doomer is in, as well as a few other folks. Two years ago, many of us participated in a P antry Challenge in which we bought no groceries at all in the month of March and lived on only what we had in the house. March probably wasn’t the best month to attempt that since a lot of the food I preserved from the previous summer was already long gone but it was a good test to see how long we could last with food we had on hand.

Head on over to Callie’s site to get the rest of the story! Just let me say a few things..

A) I would trade something she wanted from the farm for a day’s lession on how to make good homemade progies! a huge weak spot in my own cooking ability! Her’s are just plan drool worthy!

B) Just a comment on the March challange, which I indeed to bring back again this year, the reason that month is picked is because it was called the straving month way back when for the very reason’s Callie said, you are at the end of winter, nothing is fresh, you don’t really have anything to wild harvest yet.. the temps are up enough that frozen food thaws and its still cold enough that nothing is really growing without major planning..

C) I do agree, I think it is harder to do these challanges without having the farm resourses, so in that A HUGE hats off to you!!

So how about the others that said there were joining, when you get your round up done, let me know and I will share it on my site as well!

Posted in Life moves on daily | Tagged frugal ten dollar a week food challange | 1 Comment

Name? Houdini, pony?

Posted on January 11, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

Ok, I am looking for name idea’s, Houdini just does not roll of the tongue in a nice easy way and I struggle over it while trying to work with him, I do not want to go back to calling him Pony, I get enough flack over calling the Cow “Girl”..

So as you know, small mini-horse dapple grey pinto gelding.. but I don’t want to go to silly cute like tom thumb or Tiny Tim or Jimminie Cricket ?

I will admit that I do like Itty-Bit but can that really be a good name to work with.. Whoa itty-bit.. not really..

Open to idea’s and thoughts but won’t say for sure that I will pick one, just that I am open to listening.. Look forward to what you come up with..

Posted in Life moves on daily | 12 Comments

Rabbit Stirfry Recipe

Posted on January 11, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

This is one of those wonderful quick suppers, only four main food things went into it, and it went from nothing to on the table in about ten min flat, got to love a meal like that.

1 to 1 an half cups of cropped cooked pulled rabbit meat from when we did out cook the bones, pull the meat and make bone stock from the neck, ribs and back
1 med onion, peeled and diced
3 to 4 cups of sliced cabbage, I like mine to be about 2 inch long and half a inch or so wide
1 head of broccoli, sliced cleaned stem and head cut into small bites
a tiny bit of olive oil to start the pan
Spices are the ones that make this dish, salt, turmeric (or a mild curry), black pepper, garlic powder, about 1/4th tsp of each, if wanted you can but a tiny touch of soy sauce at the end.

Posted in Life moves on daily | Tagged Rabbit stirfry Recipe | Leave a comment

Friday Report.. Ten dollar a Week Food Challange/Weigh in

Posted on January 11, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

The Ten Dollar a week food Challange is coming into its second week, the first week the ten dollars went to the Good Food Box fund, this week, I spent 4.22 cents, which was one 3 pds bag of onions, and a treat that was not really a good thing but I need to own it, I came home with a package of those chocolate filled croissane, which was shared equally between Dh and myself..

This coming week’s ten dollar fund is going for the good food box as I order two of them, and I won’t know what I get until they come in..

In the house fresh I still have 3 pds of yellow onions plus 3, less then half of a green cabbage, 2 pds of carrots, 2 green apples and that’s it.. everything else needs to come from the pantry, cellar in a canned, dried or frozen state.

As rabbit has been the fresh meat in the house this week, we have been having a lot of rabbit dishes (as you can see during with the recipes shared, and another one coming soon)

Weigh in..

While I checked twice and so did DH, in fact he did it on both scales, we are both the same this week as last.. kind of odd that it happened to both of us but there it is, nothing gained and nothing lost..

I will admit to being a little huh about this, but nothing to do about it it now, just move forward, I will have to make more effort this week.

Posted in frugal | Tagged frugal food challange ten dollars a week | 2 Comments

Rabbit Stew in a creamy mustard sauce.

Posted on January 10, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

Ok, I did need two pots and one fry pan to pull this dish together the way I wanted it and I am unsure how to get it to less and get the same dish…

This meal was made out of the my most favorite part of the rabbit the back saddles, they are without a doubt the “tenderloin” of the rabbit to me, love! love this cut.. I had boned the meat out and then aged it for a full three days in the coldest part of the fridge. I then cut them into little cubes, remember to take off the white skin on these so they stay amazing tender morsels.

In one pot a cooked up a number of med diced potato’s and in another I just heated back a pot filled with a bag of frozen green beans..

In a bowl, I mixed one cup of thick greek yogurt (could use sour cream in a pinch but you want the yogurt tang if you can get it) with two heaping spoons of seedy mustart, one was dandilion and the other was a mixed seed honey mustart, a pinch of salt was added and mixed in.

I sliced a large onion, and put in some good quality olive oil in the cast iron and heated it till med hot, then added in the rabbit cubes and the onion and let the first side get browned before flipping, I drained both veggies, for three servings (there was enough meat to increase the veggies to make it a four person serving if wanted), I used the saddlebacks for two rabbits, two large potato’s diced, 2 cups of green beans, and one large onion.

Once the meat is cooked though a matter of a few minutes, I added the hot pototat and green beans, gentley folding them into together to heat though, at this point and put my cup of mustard sauce over top and mixed in.. allowed to just get back to simmer point and removed to serve.. you could serve this with a side salad or a fresh bun.

Posted in Food Production and Recipes | Tagged Creamy Mustard Rabbit Stew, Rabbit Stew, Rabbit Stew Recipe, Rabbit tenderloins in a creamy mustard sauce | 1 Comment

Working on a Rabbit Hide..Part one..

Posted on January 10, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

Now I know that you can buy or even make homemade chemical tanning solutions and with time and practise you will get very good results indeed..

My hide is not going to come out looking like that, I am curing with salt/alum and will be doing a light smoking with summac for the tannins.. none the less it will work very well for what I have in mind..

So in the photos, you have a chilled in a snow bank rabbit hide, from start to mostly cleaned up and salted down and chilling waiting for the next step.. From start to finish in the photo, it took me a good three hours of careful detailed work on scraping down the hide, and it could still use some more work yet.

Posted in Life moves on daily | Tagged rabbit hides | 4 Comments

One of those super simple meals, Salmon and Pea’s

Posted on January 10, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

Can you honestly call something so simple a recipe? None the less, what a great breakfast this was but of course it could be a lovely lunch or even a nice light supper..

One 5 oz peice of thawed salmon, 3 cups of frozen green pea’s, and a bit of olive oil and a small pat of butter.. Heat your cast iron with the olive oil, cut your salmon in half and place in the pan to start cooking, let the one side get good and browned before flipping, then take the one peice out to rest when done, and chop up the other, throw in your pea’s (that have pulled and are sitting out for the last ten to twenty mins as you prep and cook etc, and then throw them in that wonderful hot fishy oil and heat though mixed with the half peice of salmon, add a touch of salt and a pat of butter if you which.

To serve, dish up and then place the whole peice on top.. Yum!, Just flat out yum!

Posted in Life moves on daily | Tagged SALMON and peas | Leave a comment

Carrying a Boar between breedings.. Angelo

Posted on January 9, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

Well, we had planned on breeding Miss Piggy and the butchering Angelo after he had a rest from breeding and I had confirmed Piglets, then we went back and forth a bit on this one, as there were pro’s and con’s to getting a new male pig once a year as that is the most litters I really want from Miss Piggy..

So just a heads up that Angelo is heading off with Marty and Ten of our biggest lambs to the butcher on Monday..

I have read it a number of times that carrying a boar requires three females to make it successful in terms of profit on the little ones, and I have figured a few things out.. first being that given that I am going to do most of the piglets for myself, I am not so worried about if the offspring are purebred or not..

Miss Piggy is purebred but not papered, so I can’t sell the babies as purebred, so why worry about if I am breeding a pure black to a pure black, I could in fact keep my wonderful Miss Piggy and take her to a regular old pig, or a half heritage pig of a different breed, so that I get colorful wee ones, don’t you think red spotted would just be so much fun!, getting a much better growth rate on her offspring, because let me tell you.. right now, I have to say that my growth weight in the three, almost four month old piglets are not impressing me..

While the piglets are growing and are super healthy, they are going to take two or three months longer to reach the same weight as some of the half hertiage/half meat pig weaners I have raised up, and dare I say this, I want some of that growth rate back in her offspring.. now I see why those I got my weaner pigs from had heritage breed pasture mothers, crossbreed back to a regular or half regular meat pig.

I have really only one way to adjust out the feed costs of raising this litter up, and that is butchering out a piglet every six weeks or so, this allows me to gain fresh meat for us on the farm and it allows that feed portion from that piglet to go to the remaining piglets in the grow out pen, thus keeping the feed cost at a level rate, instead of growing with the piglets per month.. It is being effective in that way and the meat is excellent and I certainly have enough piglets that its not going to effect the end result of having lots of pork in the freezer or canned up in the pantry etc..

Having said that, it does effect the overall amount of return we are getting, clearly if I am butchering out a piglet at 3 months, 4 months and 5 months and most likely at 6 months of age in order to carry the rest to the eight/nine month stage for proper butcher weights, that is a problem in the sense of I am giving up a fifty to six pds of meat per pig I butcher out early in the long run.

By being willing to crossbred, I still control the raising and lifestyle of the male pig, and I control the pregancy of the female and her babies, while gaining the faster growth rates, I don’t lose mother ability because that is miss piggies domain, and she is very good at it.

As much as I hate to admit it, letting Angelo go to be replaced in the future with Kermit the Hog makes alot of sense at this time. What breed Kermit will be, only time will tell..