Just another Day on the Farm

Just a few photos of my pork Dishes..

Posted on November 27, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

Pulled pork with mustard, mayo, black olives and old aged chedder cheese..

A whole suckling pig shoulder slow temp roasted on a bed of halfed onions with carrots cooked around it, once it was fully cooked and fall off the bone tender, I pulled all the meat, cut it up and added in four diced potato’s, a bit more spices and back into the oven to finish off, the flavour was amazing, I have not had such a lovely flavour on a dish with almost no or very little extra’s added in to make it so..

This was my favorite offal dish without a doubt and it was also the one that didn’t come with a recipe LOL, I just mixed some seasonings, some cornmeal and yogurt, diced up the heart, and made a lovely cornbread coated meat peices.. wonderful, I have not eaten alot of pork heart to be honest, typically its been ground in to make hamburger but this one at least was very nice..

I did make blood pudding, I didn’t want to go with the english style and when with a spanish one that used some fruit and lets just say .. NO!

These quick cooked, seasoned little delights are the piggy version of prairie oysters. I did take a fair amount of the skin off but could have done a bit more, it didn’t bother the dish any because it was a prepare, cook and eat right now.

Ok, my least favorite of all, yes you are reading this right, I will happily eat lung, blood or boy parts before I will even consider eating kidney, I did cook it the way it said in the meat cookbook and I have to admit that it did cook up nicely and I made myself have a bit and eat it and for kidney (which I have tried at least half a dozen times now ) it was sweet, and mild but still not my thing.. but the hound that got it, loved it!

The bacon and leg of ham is still curing in the brine, the ribs and neck are slow roasting and will be a BBQ pulled meat most likely over rice and veggies, and that leaves me the back/loins for soup/stew meat and one full shoulder yet to do something with in the future.

So this the first thing I will say, yes you can eat suckling pig in other ways then whole slow roasted, it is flavourful and it is a soft meat compared to a full grown pig from the store but its not mushy which is how I heard it reported in a number of places, I don’t find that true in our case.

Posted in Charcuterie | Tagged Butchering a suckling piglet, nose to tail eating, Organ recipes for a suckling pig, Young pig recipes | 4 Comments

Sprouted Grains/Green Fodder Update

Posted on November 27, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

Things I have learned so far, when trying to do larger amounts of sprouts on the frugal side..

Yes, you can use leftover window screen in a tray to grow in, but the sprouts will grow right out the bottom but are surprising easy to roll off in, they don’t stick, On the other hand, thick plastic which is so close to what others recommend does not drain well enough and will cause mold..
Soak your grains for the full 24 hours, not the eight to 12 they say,, it will work fine in warm weather or a hot house but if you are dealing with cooler temps, they need the full 24 hours in the water.
DO NOT! overload the tray’s, you will just stunt the growth on the whole batch, while you don’t want it spread to thin, as it becomes quite difficult to keep it evenly moist but don’t go to thick either.
Worry more about cleaning your equipment between batches, mold is your enemy even more then drying out is.. when you clean out your bucket, trays, in whatever form you are using, make sure they get a good scrub out and then a full bleach out rince and air dry before use
If at all possable buy cleaned seed, I had the chance to use from the field direct from the farmer seed, and while it looks good, I have had so many issues with mold on the seed, while the 90 pds of whole cleaned barley seed for 20 dollars has been wonderful in not getting mold issues. (I also stepped up my cleaning process but I think the difference is far more then that)
Everyone that has been offered it snaps it up and seems to really like it. I have certainly not yet gotten it figured out that I am getting the levels they say online.. they say 2 pds for 12 to 14 pds of green fodder..
The best I am getting at the moment is right around 8pds give or take an ounce or two per two pds of grains, not bad, but not quite were I want to be..
Lower temps effects how long it takes the grains to sprout to the size you want, I am guility of just not waiting long enough, I was! to be on a seven day sprouting cycle and its more like a ten day on, and I am pretty sure I would be getting a better rate of return on the tray’s if I could hold out for a few extra days of grow time.. Which brings my next point!
This take a goodly amount of space! If you only want to sprout of six chickens, maybe you can get away with a small spot but if you want to use it for a goodly number of critters, you will quickly find that you need alot of space to make this happen, and the really question is where do you put it, you need to do your watering at least 4x a day ideally, and it needs to be able to slowly drip dry, which means you need your trays in a area that collects the water but you can’t leave it there, it will quickly start smelling, I don’t know how folks talk about recycling their water, I should would not want to do so, I have no issues collecting the water and pouring it into the garden or the compost pile or even offered it to the chicken, and they like it very much, so by no means do I recommend putting the water down the sink but it does need to go somewhere
Last but not least is the advice that using fresh sprouts in the inch to two inch range does seem to also go over very well with the critters, which means if you want, you can mix and match, allowing some tray’s to go longer to the fodder stage and you can allow some tray’s to go to the fully sprouted stay and the pigs at least seem to really enjoy both states, you are not going to get as much feed.
This does save money, so the piglets are to be currently getting 12 pds of feed per day, you can have a choice here, do you want pay to feed 12 pds of the correctly mixed grains, along with 6 pds of good quality hay per day, or Would you raither take 2 or 3 pds of grains, and create fodder/heavily sprouted grains that turn into 8 to 12 pds of much more nutrional packed fodder with 3 to 4 pds of hay.. If you can find the space and time to sprout, it will cut the overall feeding costs to be sure.
Rotate your tray’s, the least sprouted on the bottom,the most sprouted on the top of the space, you want the freshest first waterings to start at the top trays and work your way down..

Well, there is my current overview, I am sure as I get things working better and faster, I will tweek the system and find the ways to make this work better, I do believe that this is well worth it, like most things its got a learning curve is all when you take it from small amounts to much larger amounts and multiply trays on the go at the same time.

Posted in Charcuterie | Tagged Green fodder, Reducing Feed Costs., Sprouted Grained | 1 Comment

Snow arrived overnight!

Posted on November 26, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

Bubbles is due in Jan, given her size already, I’m guess that she is carrying twins again this year!, she’s a old pro on this winter thing 🙂

Whimps, I see one gander (Honk) and three turkey hens out in the snow and bright sunshine, not a duck or chicken to be seen, they are all in the building or the little A-frame.. silly birds, this is nothing compared to what is coming!

Good thing we have been growing in our thick fluffy winter coats over the past couple months, and we really like our bedded down loafing area in the side shelter area of the barn..

Brandy says I know what all this about, this is my seventh winter and I am just hanging with the crew..

Posted in Critters | 1 Comment

Pulled Pork in a fresh bun with Fireweed Mustard.

Posted on November 25, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

Slow roasted leg of suckling pig done in coals (don’t believe the books, it does not require an as much roasting time as they said, it was clearly overdone but still moist and tasty with a nice smoke flavor, served up on fresh warm buns from the oven with fireweed mustard (same recipe as Dandilion mustard recipe but replace the Dandilion flowers with fireweed flowers) the next batch will be with mustard, fried onion, black olive bits and some mozza cheese melted in.. It should be heavenly..

Posted in Life moves on daily | 1 Comment

D-Day for one Large Black Suckling pig..

Posted on November 25, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

Well, I knew it was coming all week and was both dreading it and looking forward to it, it was to happen yesterday but that bitter, bitter cold wind and freezing/snow pellets make me postpone.

I choose a boar piglet, he weighted in at 26 pds live weight and we had less then 2% of that was not able to be used between our own use, and farm use.

I am expermenting with the cuts and meat of this piglet, everywhere I have read kept saying at this age, that its roasting and that’s about it, so I had to be different. I have one whole hind leg that is going super old fashioned, we used the fire to take off the hair and to clean it up, and then wrapped it and are slow roasting it in the coals..

The second hind leg is in a lovely cure for a mini-bone in ham, along with the bacon to be..

The shoulders are planned as slow roasting, The ribs are going to be BBQ’d, the neck, back minus the little tenderlions are planned for slow simmering, and then pulling all the meat off the bones to be made into a huge stew or soup for canning, there are different plans for organ meat and nose to tail cooking.. Updates on that to follow as I figure it out..

Overall, I was very happy with the process in general and how quickly the butcher went, I was kinda surprised at how quickly it went, and just how much i was able to get out of it, I got alot more in percent for our use then the books said, and that’s before the nose to tail eating part..

Posted in Life moves on daily | 1 Comment

Weights, feeding ratio’s and Weight Gains..

Posted on November 24, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

Well with the ever rising feed costs, taking a few min and measuring out weights on critters and checking and double checking what they should be getting daily is a very good idea, you can easily get in the habit of giving a full scoop when a half is only needed, and on the flip side, you can get used to a feeding a certain amount and not take into account slow but steady age growth..

Lets give some real life examples shall we.. So the piglets are getting on average 1 pds of feed per for each month they are alive, so given that they are nine weeks they were requiring 2 pds per piglet but now they are heading into the 3rd month, 3 pds per piglet stage

On the other hand, there mother Miss Piggy who currently is a little on the lean looking side is sitting at 440 pds and was up to a quite high milking daily ration, has been weaned, so she having her feed reduced, not reduced to non-expecting, non-milking ration until she puts on a little of her milked off weight, but a slow steady weekly reduction down to her regular daily ration.

Angelo on the other hand who came in at 400 hundred pds is going up another two pds per day in his rations. and Tootie is overweight and going down in her grain/feed ration and up in her hay ration for roughage, as her breed of pig has a large ability to eat food but she can have ill health effects from being to fat, so the higher calorie grow ration for the piglets or Miss Piggy is a bad idea, she needs a lower protien soaked grain, with more roughage, the roughage not just for health but for feeling full and content.

Girl came in at 1250, she is currently 28 months and half way though her first pregancy and with extra read and careful planning, i have found out that she is currently being overfeed her grain ration as I keep her on her baby rate, instead of reducing her to a heifer rate..

On the flip side Marty who measured out less then I was expecting with the offical tape measure by close to a hundred pds is not getting enough, he will be moving up not on his grain ration but on his sprout ration, I can really! see the difference in growth rates between Girl who was able to graze on a lush rich pasture and Marty who had a very poor dry pasture, the best thing I can come up with is getting him on the fodder and increasing his weight gains that way..

Last but not least is the ewes, ranging between 130 to 170 pds with my ram coming in at 240 pds at the moment, which gives me a good overview of what my girls will need as they get closer to lambing in terms of a protein increase, I had really hoped to be able to do that with the fresh fodder but I have a feeling that its going to end up being a mix of sprouted grains, and fermented soaked grains along with all the good quality hay that they can eat, I also got a new product that is a molases, vit/mineral/fat sheep lick for lambing season, I got two tubs and just let me say this .. OUCH on the cost but if it has the effect on the ewe’s that it promises in health, milk production and overall lambing ease as well as bright active bouncing lambs it will have been worth it, we will see if it is really that big of a improvement over regular old loose minerals and vit, I really like the idea of it, we will see in time if it lives up to what I have read..

Needless to say this allows me to figure out how much per critter per day for feeds, which allows me to figure out the month alotments but it also has to be flexable in terms of extra farm inputs, garden and household scraps and weather dependent increases in calorie needs.

So do you weight out and measure out your animals to help make sure they are being correctly feed?

Posted in Critters | 2 Comments

Dandelion Mustard Recipe

Posted on November 23, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

This recipe is credited to the late Rose Barlow..

Dandelion Mustard

1 cup of yelow mustard seeds whole

1 and 1/4th cup apple cider vinegar

1/2 cup of Dandelion syrip or birch syrup or dark grade b maple syrup

1 cup of fresh cleaned dandelion greens pureed, if you don’t have enough dandlion, you can use chickweed or lambs quarters

1/2 cup of Dandelion petals, (make sure to remove the bitter green parts)

4 cloves of galic, finely chopped.. Pinch of sea salt.

Soak the mustard seeds in the apple cider vinager for several hours, then blend with the rest of the ingredents till as smooth as you would like it. Makes about two cups, to keep it for longer in the fridge, its recommended to pour a little olive oil on top to keep it fresh and moist.

Dh brought back some jars of this amazing wonderful Dandelion Mustard.. It was made by Aurora Mountain Farm, they changed it up a bit from the recipe above, they used a number of small colored mustards and its a very course grind, they also made a fireweed mustard..

This is a FarmGirl Blog Hop Post

Posted in Food Production and Recipes | Tagged Dandelion flower recipe, Dandelion mustard recipe, The Boreal Herbal, Whitehorse Dandelion Mustard Recipe | 7 Comments

Salt Cured Duck Breast Prosciutto

Posted on November 22, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

I always have to laugh a little, mine never looks like the ones in the book or on the net in the recipe, but man does it take good! Here is my finished aged salted and Cured Duck Breast Prosciutto.. a thing of beauty to my eye at least..