We also had a ton of other squash and zucchini and green beans.  Jamie grilled a bunch of the veg and made several batches of zucchini bread and a green bean and purslane salad.  It was pointed out to us that we had purslane growing in our garden–we had considered it a weed.  It’s actually a very healthy, tasty and versatile green.  We absolutely love “wild” food like that.

As far as the bull goes, we coordinated with a local farmer who keeps a herd of herefords, dexters and galloways.  His galloway bull normally just stays with the herd.  We transported the bull here yesterday and he’ll stay through the end of August.  We had three options when it came to breeding our cows:

• Artificial insemination (AI)
• Buying a bull
• Leasing a bull

The main benefit of AI is not having to “manage” a bull, even short-term.  You also have a much larger range (essentially unlimited) of bulls to select from.  However, the downside of AI is that you have to have someone who is trainied in bovine AI do it and you really have to watch your cows to know when to “pull the tube” (literally, out of a cryogenic freezer).  Also, the success rate is generally much lower than using natural means.  Given that we are busy with other things at the moment, it seemed too involved a process, but it is something we’d reconsider in the future.

We also considered buying a bull.  In this case, we would have bought the bull, brought him over to breed the cows, and when he was done brought him to the butcher.  This would have simultaneously bred the cows as well as replenished our supply of hamburgers and hotdogs.  The downside is primarily cost, but also the unpredictability of a bull someone is willing to get rid of for a price we’re willing to pay.  Keeping a bull full time doesn’t make economic sense for us given the small size of our herd and the hay/feed/vet costs associated with his upkeep.

Our third option is the most traditional.  We would lease a bull, bring him to the farm, have him breed our cows and return him to his original herd when finished.  While the selection of breeding stock is more limited than AI (luckily our area of the state has a good number of cattle operations, so the selection really isn’t that bad).  It’s also a bit more “hands off”.  We bring the bull in for ideally 2 cycles (cows cycle every 28 days just like people) and have a good change of bred cows at the end.

We chose belted galloway primarily because they are genetically polled (hornless, which is dominant so our horned cows’ offspring would be hornless), cross well with dexters, they are very hardy and the fact that they tend to throw smaller calves (a concern of ours given we have small dexter cows).

Hopefully this will be a success and we’ll have at least one if not two calves next spring.  Stay tuned!

Last Sunday we brought him to the butcher.  He was about ten months old.  He and the two goats had been hanging out in the garden the last few weeks, eating what leftovers they could find.  He was easy to load, we just put down a scoop of grain and then slipped the dog leash around.  We loaded him into the back of the Blazer and headed off in the snow.  Jackson rubbed his nose and sang him songs during the three mile trip.  He was easy to unload, and we all said goodbye to him as well as the other cows and pigs waiting in the holding area at our local butcher, Maurice’s in Canterbury CT.  They are a lovely family run business and we are so happy to work with them.  We stayed and chatted for a while as it was a slow day for the livestock handler (usually trucks are lined up, but with the snow, people were getting a slow start).

On Thursday we went to pick him up.  The most striking aspect of the carcass was how different the fat was compared to the pigs and steer.  It is very hard fat and you can understand why it is so highly prized.  We watched as the butcher expertly pieced out the lamb into all of the best cuts.  Jackson got to help out by passing the wrapped packages to Mike and telling him what each contained.  Charlotte and I played with one of the butcher’s young toddlers and chatted about good lamb recipes with the other workers.

Here is what we ended up with:

Hanging weight of 60lbs (we don’t know what his live weight was, but probably about 100-120lbs)

Retail cuts = @50lbs

• Loin chops= 5.5 lbs
• Ribs = 4 lbs
• Shoulder chops = 6 lbs
• Stew Meat = 2 lbs
• Ground Meat = 6 lbs
• Soup bones = 3.5 pounds
• Rack of lamb = 2 lbs
• Rump chops = 3 pounds
• Shanks = 4 lbs
• Legs (2) = 12 pounds
• Heart, kidney, liver = 2 lbs

[FYI, the lamb cost @ $100 to buy, the butchering fees including the fee to salt the pelt and set it aside was $90.  He may have eaten a total of 5-6 bales of hay, so figure another $25.  That makes a total of $215, or a little more than $4/pound for organic lamb.  It looks like it will be about $40-50 to process the hide, plus shipping which could add another $20 or more, depending on the final weight.  That will be for @ a 3' x 5' rug.  I think compared to retail costs for the meat and rug, we are well ahead of the game in both respects.  Also, you just can't get the type of meat or the type of rug we have unless you raise your own or know a breeder, as our lamb was not a common cross, certainly not a cross that is raised commercially.  Next year, we hope to have 1-2 lambs of our own from our sheep, so our only fees will be butchering, tanning and whatever hay they eat.]

The butcher had also salted the hide and the kids and I went out to the hide shed to pick it up.  It was really amazing, each hide from the animals they process is salted with rock salt, sorted, and stacked.  The hides are sold to a processing plant in NY and turned into leather.  Our pelt was much larger than I thought it would be, I have not yet measured it, but at its longest and widest, maybe 3′ x 5′.  We brought is home, added some fresh salt, and laid it out in the basement.  It needs to dry cure for another week and then we will mail it to a tanning facility in PA that specializes in sheep skins that are all natural and machine washable.

We froze most of the meat with the exception of one pack of ribs and 4 lbs of the ground meat.  Mike and I have not eaten a lot of lamb, we both love Shepherd’s pie and have cooked leg of lamb.  We have had lamb at both Greek and Indian restaurants. As with everything else, we consider this to be another experiment.  If we like the meat, we will undoubtedly raise more lamb, if not, we will have a nice spinners flock to keep the pasture neatly clipped.  As it happened, the meat was divine.  The ribs were so good, and the ground meat was turned into Shepherd’s pie.   The biggest bonus was how much the kids loved it.  They like most foods, but you never know when something new is introduced.  Jackson especially loved the lamb, saying it is now his favorite.

Here are the two “recipes”

BBQ Lamb Ribs

• 2-4 lbs lamb ribs, all but a few streaks of fat removed
• 1 pint bbq sauce (ours is a homemade version that is really a spicy ketchup)
• 1 half pint ginger-peach chutney (or whatever type of chutney you like)
• Place together in a slow cooker and cook on low for 6-8 hours, turning the ribs half way for even cooking.  You can add a little water if they look dry.
• Eat, enjoy!  We eat ours on toasted hotdogs puns with slices of pickles we canned this summer from our crop of cukes paired with cheese fries and a romaine salad.  A hardy meal for wintertime activities.

Shepherd’s Pie

• 1-2 pounds mashed potatoes (or a mix of potatoes and cauliflower)
• 1 med onion
• 1 carrot
• 1 stalk celery
• 1 lbs ground or minced lamb
• 1 tbsp flour
• 1/3 cup stock/water
• 1 tsp thyme
• 1 tsp rosemary
• salt and pepper
• 1/2 cup shredded cheese

Prepare your mashed potatoes however you prefer them.  Chop the onion, carrot, and celery and saute until soft.  Add the lamb and cook about ten minutes.  Sprinkle the flour over the mixture and cook for 1-2 minutes then add the stock/water, herbs, salt and pepper.  Place this mixture in a 9″ pie plate, spread the mashed potatoes on top, and cook at 400F for 30 minutes.  About five minutes before the end, sprinkle of the cheese and allow it to melt and bubble.  Serve warm.

Try to find something you haven’t ever eaten and experiment in your kitchen.  You may be very surprised by how much you like it!

Here are the basic instructions:

1. Raise a turkey, duck, and chicken.  Pictured below are three of our birds that we got from the hatchery this spring, a standard bronze tom turkey, Rhode Island Red rooster, and White Peking drake.  All of these animals were allowed to free range, given an all natural, all vegetarian grain, and were exposed to all of the fresh air and sunshine they could want.

Turkey, duck, chicken

2.  When the animals get to the appropriate size, butcher them.  My good friend from Hurricane Farm came to help me do this.  Her family runs a CSA where they offer turkey, chicken, pork, and beef.  You can learn more about that at their farm blog.

3.  Once the birds have been plucked and gutted, allow them to rest in the fridge over night.  This allows excess moisture to evaporate and gives the meat time to become more tender as the muscles relax.  The turkey dressed out at 20 lbs, the duck 4 lbs, and the chicken 3.5 lbs.

4.  Debone the birds.  This was BY FAR the worst part of the whole process.  I bone a lot of meat; our family’s preferred way of processing chicken is to remove the breasts as cutlets, cut the meat from the legs and thighs and grind that, and then use the rest to make chicken stock and chicken salad.  However, boning something to get as much meat as possible while also preserving the look of the bird is much trickier.  The chicken and duck were completely boned, the turkey had the keel and thigh bones removed.

5.  Place the birds in a brine overnight.  I was following this recipe by Paula Dean.

6.  Rinse the birds and pat dry.  Lay them each out skin side down and get together the rest of your ingredients and stuffing.

7.  Starting with the turkey, spread a layer of stuffing over the entire surface.  Place the duck skin-side down and repeat, covering with a layer of stuffing.  Repeat with the chicken.

8.  With assistance truss the bird by stitching the two open sides of the turkey together.  Place it breast side up in a roasting pan and sprinkle with your preferred spice mix.

9.  Roast at 500F for 15 minutes, then turn down to 225F for as long as it takes until the inside of the bird is 160F.  I cooked ours overnight and our oven has an internal probe that you insert into meat and shuts off automatically when the preset temp is reached (I LOVE LOVE LOVE our oven).  I think it took at least five or six hours.

10.  Allow to rest for at least 15 minutes before carving.

This was without question the most delicious turkey, duck, and chicken I have ever had.  So moist, so tender, and the stuffing was to die for.  But, it was A LOT of work, and may be a once every year or two kind of project.

Th next day we had the world’s best sandwich.  We took some pumpkin oatmeal bread, slapped on some turkey, duck, chicken, stuffing, and canned cranberry sauce, and yum, yum, yum.  It was so good.

Enjoy, and don’t forget to do something outside your comfort zone with food and cooking and eating, you might never know what you like until you try!

Here is a sample of the dishes we will be preparing for Saturday, all with our own meats and vegetables:

• Corned Beef Tongue with Lentils from The Meat Book by HFW
• Marinated Flank Steak
• Beef Liver Pate Two Ways (with chopped eggs the way my Jewish grandmother made it and then with butter and cream)
• Homemade Chorizo Sausage
• Homemade Sweet Italian Sausage
• Turducken
• Rabbit Ragut
• Artisan Bread
• Green Beans
• Roasted Potatoes
• Salad
• Pumpkin Cake
• Pumpkin Cookie Sandwiches

We are really excited.  We love hosting parties (and of course attending them).  It always motivates us to catch up on all of those little projects around the house that have gone neglected for months.  It also allows us to make dishes that we might not otherwise make just for ourselves, the Turducken, for example.

When we were in our first apartment in New Haven, we would hold fairly posh parties.  They always had a theme and always involved pretty extreme culinary feats, everything from salt encrusted whole red snapper to tequila and cilantro gravlax to handmade mini tartlets.  Now our dishes are more traditional farm cooking, but no less delicious.  There really is something so wonderful about cooking up a huge batch of food for a festive occasion (even more so if you have grown or raised the food yourself).  When we had parties in the past, I used to strongly discourage people from bringing food, I always suggested beverages or flowers would be better as I liked to have complete control over the menu.  Now I understand how fun it is to have so many different dishes and how nice it is to make something to bring to share, so it will be potlucks from here on out for us.

Make sure you take time to celebrate the harvest season and enjoy a party, even if just by yourself, sometime this month.  If you are one of the people coming this Saturday, make sure you bring your appetite, and wear your “comfy jeans” as we promise you will not go home without a full belly.

The other thing is that after the boss was slaughtered last week, we went by to get some of the offal.  We picked up about 25 pounds of liver, heart and tongue.  We’re dividing the liver into thirds and freezing one third, cooking/freezing another third and making a beef liver pate from the last third.  We’re going to throw the heart into the mix for our hotdogs.  We had special plans for the tongue.  Jamie had come across a recipe entitled “Corned Beef (And Pickled Tongue)” in HFW’s Meat Book.  We’ve both had corned beef–who’s afraid of that?  Replacing the brisket with tongue seemed like a reasonable substitution (after all corning beef was a solution for tough, cheap meat).  Our pickled tongue is in the brine.  We’ll leave it there for about a week, after which it will be rinsed and boiled until tender and delicious.  If you’re at our Harvest Potluck Party next week, be sure to try some.

We have a trio (two does and a buck) of Silver Fox rabbits, an American breed that is critically endangered.  They were bred earlier this spring and on Sunday, we finished processing all of the rabbits from this first litter (17 minus one we gave as a gift to our lovely neighbors).  We did five last week just to see how it would go.  It was very easy.  Mike used an air gun to stun them in the head, rendering them unconscious and then I cut off the heads and let them breed out before skinning and gutting them.  Near the end, we were able to do a rabbit from start to finish in about five minutes.

I cured five of the pelts from last week using instructions found here.  They are currently hanging in the basement drying.  I hope to make them into fur hats for winter.

We used the meat to make rabbit satay, bunny burgers, and bunny tacos.  The first two dishes were based on recipes found in the River Cottage Book by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, our bible on how to cook the animals we raise.  The meat was lovely, very delicate and tender.  It does not have much of a flavor on its own, so is the  perfect foundation for flavorful dishes like satay and tacos.  For the burgers, we ground in some pork fat and herbs from the garden for extra moistness and taste.  We used the satay leftovers to make wraps with shredded carrot, kohlrabi, and cucumbers.  I crumbled the leftover burgers into our weekly garden pasta medley.  The rest of the rabbits were pieced and put in the freezer.  I plan to use the bones to make this amazing stock.  Each rabbit weighed about 4-5 lbs live and we got about 2 lbs once dressed per rabbit, plus the pelt.

Our rabbits have been re-bred and are due at the beginning of next week.  Hopefully we will get another two large litters, raising rabbits for meat is something we will be doing more of for sure.  I will try to post a cost analysis, but I know they will end up being a very inexpensive source of high quality lean protein for our family to eat.  Once I finish this batch of tanning, I will post an update on how they came out.  Wish me luck.

Also, check out all the pics from our garden here, Mike did an amazing job capturing the true beauty of the plants.

BBQ Spare Ribs with Collard Green Slaw and Buttermilk Cornbread

I took the ribs and cut them into 3-4 rib pieces.  I put them in the slow cooker along with a pint of our homemade ketchup (which was really more like bbq sauce than ketchup) and a half pint of homemade hot pepper jelly.  It cooked on low for about 8 hours, then I strained the sauce, boiled it down with some vinegar and sugar, glazed the ribs and then stuck them under the broiler for about three minutes.  Yum, yum, yum!  I subbed fresh collard greens for cabbage in the slaw and we had the yummiest meal ever.

Homemade BTKs and Cukes and Onions

We made a loaf of our absolute favorite Artisan Bread, fried up some bacon from our pigs, sliced up two perfect tomatoes from the garden, and instead of lettuce, MIke sauteed some kale briefly in the bacon fat and we ate that on the sandwich.  It is hard to imagine anything more delicious, all grown here.  We ate some cukes and onions (sliced cukes with vidalia onions in a 1:1:1/2 solution of water, white vinegar, and sugar) with it.

Grilled veggie pasta with Wheat Bread and Peach and Ginger Chutney

Every other day I must bring it 5-10 lbs of food.  Our tomatoes are going crazy.  What I like to do is halve them, scoop out the seeds and pop them under the broiler.  I also do peppers this way about once a week.  I grilled up squash, eggplant, and onions.  I love having these things just sitting in the fridge, I use them in pasta, eggs, salsa.  If I get too much, I freeze some for later.  For lunch, we tossed together the veggies, roughly blended them with a stick blender and then tossed that with pasta.  We also tried the light wheat bread from Artisan Bread and we ate it with cream cheese and the peach and ginger chutney we made a few weeks ago.  We almost ate the entire loaf.

In addition, Jackson and I dug up our second row of potatoes, a combo of fingerlings, red boiling potatoes, and a russet type.  We got about 6o lbs of spuds.  We took the small ones and pressure canned them, this was an easy way to store potatoes that would otherwise not store well and this winter we can eat them out of the jar, or through them in with soups, casseroles, etc.  We also took about 12 lbs of the russets and shredded them in the food processor, blanched them, then formed them into patties and put them in the freezer.  Now we have ready-to-go hash browns.  We boiled a bunch more of the potatoes (all of the ones that had dings or bruises and wouldn’t keep) and have about 30lbs of fresh potatoes in the cupboard to eat over the next month or two.  We still have one row of potatoes in the garden, these are our Kennebecs which we will cure and hopefully store in the basement to eat all winter long.  We expect, based on the yields of the other two rows that we will likely get 60-80lbs.

We also canned three pints of cucumber sandwich slices and made a pint of crystalized ginger and about four quarts or ginger syrup to add to club soda for homemade ginger ale.

Tonight we went out and picked tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, collards, kohlrabi, beans, and rutabagas.

We also butchered five of our rabbits.  In the next day or two we will be making bunny burgers, rabbit kebabs, and stewed rabbit.  We will be trying to see what we like best as neither of us has eaten rabbit before.  I am tanning their hides (waste not, want not) and making lucky rabbits feet for Jackson.  We have eleven more rabbits to process, and will likely do that over the course of this week.  The woman we bought them from taught us how to dispatch  them in the most humane way possible with a small air pistol.  I am very happy to say that their deaths were instantaneous and they did not appear to suffer at all.  They were also very easy to skin and gut, MUCH easier and faster than chicken.  From a 4 1/2 pound live rabbit, we got 2 lbs of dressed meat plus the hide.  Not a bad return.  We will keep you posted on how we like the meat and may even post a tutorial.

Happy eating!

Mike and Jackson were so fast putting up the fence that we were able to go to one of our favorite places, Belltown Orchard in Glastonbury, CT.  It is picture perfect, and they have great fruit.  We picked 20 pounds of blueberries and picked up about 80 pounds of plums, peaches, nectarines, and apples for about $40 at their farmstand.  They sell “seconds” at an insane price and since we plan to use them for jamming, saucing, we don’t mid a few blemishes.  Here is what we have done with that 100 pounds of fruit so far:

• A double batch of blueberry muffins
• Eight pints of blueberry jam
• Three sheets of blueberry fruit leather plus two pints of blueberry concentrate for drinks
• Fourteen pints of plum jam
• One sheet of plum fruit leather plus one pint of plum concentrate
• Five quarts of peach sauce
• Seven quarts of canned peaches
• Five pints of peach jam
• Seven half pints of peach and ginger chutney
• Frozen peach pops for the kids
• Two sheets of peach leather
• Plus all of the fresh fruit we can eat

We still have all of the nectarines (@15 lbs), six pounds of apples, a few pounds of plums, and a bowl full of blueberries.  I think we will make jam and fruit leather with the nectarines and make a nice chutney with the apples and plums plus some veg from our garden.

To make fruit leather, we place prepared fruit (peeled, chopped, etc) in a but with a half cup of water.  We bring it to a boil, then shut off the heat and cover it for half an hour or so until the fruit is soft.  Then we strain it, reserving the juice for making drinks with, blend the fruit and dry it.  We have a dehydrator and usually set it to 120F for 12-16 hours.  Then we roll it in parchment paper, and store it in bags or jars for eating another time.

In addition to the farm fresh eating, we have been on what I call our “state fair” kick.  It gives me a great change to try out my newest kitchen purpose, a six quart Lodge Dutch oven, red, of course.  This weekend we made fried dough and zeppolis (which are so easy to make and are a super yummy treat for breakfast for the kids). Tonight we are making homemade corn dogs.  Yum!

• Chinese cabbage salad and Roasted new potatoes
• Chicken gravy on toast, Fried chicken livers, and Stir fried kale
• Fried chicken and Potato, turnip, and rutabaga chips
• Scrambled eggs with Ham and toast and Strawberry jam
• Grilled chicken wings in an Asian marinade with Pad thai noodles
• Spoon bread and Southern style collard greens
• Oven roasted veggies with Crock pot braised chicken
• Egg salad sandwiches and Veggie crudite
• Homemade Maraschino cherry syrup, rum, and lemon lime coolers
• Potato salad and BLT sandwhiches

This is what it is ALL about, having amazing food, eating with friends and family, and enjoying the summer sun (when it makes an appearance).

Enjoy some local, fresh, seasonal food this week with you and yours.