Brawn before brains

We've made the brawn, but we're a bit porked out at the moment (we  had roast pork yesterday, pork with hoisin sauce this evening, and we've having leftover sausage tomorrow).  So, we've packed it and we're going to freeze it for later.

We've also made pork stock with the bones (roasted the bones first),  we had so much stuff for stock that we had to use the pressure canner as a pressure cooker.

Ham is still sitting in the fridge in its Wiltshire cure; bacon still dry curing in the fridge as well. 

Pork with hoisin sauce

Following on from butchering our half pig, we had a large hand of pork (3.4kg) yesterday for dinner, as we had friends around.  I slow-roasted it, using Jamie Oliver's recipe for bone-in pork shoulder,   allowing extra time for the middle part of the cooking (6 hours instead of 4.5).  It was fantastic.  Moist, juicy, tasty.  (No good if you like your pork sliced, this was fall-off-the-bone-in-chunks meat.

This evening for dinner we made piadines, which are an unleavened bread-type affair. We make these when we want to have "fajitas".     We shredded (scuffed about with two forks, in the manner of the waiters at chinese restaurants) some of the leftover pork and we made "pancakes" with the piadines, hoisin sauce, finely sliced cucumber and finely sliced spring onion.

OMG, it was delicious!

I've spent years not eating pork because when I think of it I think of dry squeaky meat.  These other cuts are such a revelation to me!

This will definitely be a regular feature on our leftover roast pork menu!

Gnom gnom gnom.

At last!

Roobarb (Egg from one of the Welsh Blacks who is mainly Indian Game) crouched for me today, for the first time!  

And I think we have a first egg from her.   She's 45 weeks old.  Even older than Jasmine, my Welsummer, was when she eventually decided to lay.

Of course I did the egg dance in the garden,  whoo hoo!

Lard-i-dah pics

I've never really rated lard before... but making our own has made me look at it differently.    


The front jars have liquid lard in, only just rendered. The one on the left is half full.  The jars behind have lard in which had been out of the oven for about half an hour and was starting to set....

 

And this picture shows the set lard.  It is really white, and looks like face cream. There is no smell at al

Dinner update

Roast pork was perfect.  Very tender, very moist. Not overcooked at all.
 

Lard-i-dah

As soon as the lemon curd was in the souffle dishes, and the remainder in the jars,  we put the fat from yesterday's pig into two roasting dishes and popped it in the warm oven to render down.

After 30 minutes we already had quite a lot of liquid,  so DH strained it into a jug and put the rest of the fat back in the oven.   We then poured the hot fat into hot (sterilised) jars and put on hot (sterilised) lids.  It looks amazing! It's a light golden colour, and incredibly clear. It smells clean too. 

It'll solidify into white lard, and I'm looking forward to trying it as it'll be such a pure product.

We're also going to try roasting tonight's potatoes in some of it.  Shirley says it's only bettered by goose fat,  so let's see.

Good job S&K don't mind being subjected to these experiments!

Smells like a Brewery in here

So, today our good friends S&K are coming to dinner.  We're having pork (of course, that's the whole reason for inviting them!) and I thought I'd try Jamie's slow roast pork recipe.  It takes 6 hours, but is for a 2 kg joint.  My joint is 3.5 kg, so I spent a frustrating few minutes this morning trying to work out how much to increase the cooking time to.

In the end, it meant that I needed to get the Pork on *immediately* .   It was still cold from the fridge, so I've increased the initial blast of Gas 7 (180, 160Fan) from 30 mins to 45 mins.   I then covered in foil, and turned the heat down to gas 3 (150 fan) and set the timer for 6 hours (1.5 hours more than Jamie's recipe).


DH came home from doing the allotment chickens,  and started to make sausages.  I did the calculations for him, and weighed out the seasoning and rusk, and left him to it. I braved the town centre to get vegetables for dinner, bits for the ham cure, and other bits.  I'm never going into town on a Saturday again.


When I got home, DH had made one enormous batch of sausages, and was busy bagging them up.    The 3.1kg of sausage meat allocated to this batch turned into 4 kilos of sausages.     


I started to make the lemon curd for tonight's dessert, while he made the second batch.   1kg of sausagemeat turned into 1.3 kg of sausages.  They smell divine.


DH started to make the Wiltshire Cure for the ham.   We've found several recipes for Wiltshire Cure,  all different.  In the end we settled on Hugh's recipe,  so DH ended up boiling up a huge vat of cure, which included 1kg of treacle and 3 litres of beer. Boddington's was on offer, so that's what we had.    


The sboiling mixture smells gorgeous, very malty and beery - in a good way.  Smells like a brewery in here.

Telling Porkies

So, today we collected our half pig, and spent 5 and a half hours with Shirley teaching us how to convert it into the cuts we wanted.

What a great day!  I'm exhausted, my back aches; and we're currently still going, as we're making brine to cure a ham and the head.

First we learned to cut the half carcass into the four primary cuts.  This was relatively easy to do.  Having said that, if we decide to butcher our own half carcass next time (if we live long enough to eat all this pork and need a second half), I'll ask her to break it into the primary cuts as 4 pieces are much easier to move than 1 complete side!


SHirley had sent us some information in advance and had asked us to think about what sort of things we wanted to get from the side.   So, faced with the 4 primary cuts (belly, loin, leg, hand), we went through the things we had decided.


Belly:  one part for roasting,  one part for bacon
Hand: top part - shoulder - for roasting,  bottom part -  hand - for roasting
Leg : part to be used to make our own ham; rest to be processed into cubes or mince
Loin: 9 huge loin chops;  rest of loin processed into cubes or mince (we could have had more chops, or made bacon; but only DH eats pork chops,  and we alrweady had a load of belly for streaky bacon).


As we processed the bits,  we had a bowl for "sausages",  a bowl for "mince", a bowl for "diced", a bag for "lard",  and a bag for "rubbish".     


Of the parts mentioned, we ended up with:
Mince: 1.4 kg (bagged in 250g or 300g packs)
Chops: 3.4kg]
Diced: 2.7kg (in 250g or 300g packs)
Offucts for sausages: 4.1kg
Leg (for ham): 3.4kg
Hand (for roasting): 3.525kg
Shoulder (=spare rib joint for roasting): 2.95kg
Hock: 626g
Belly (for bacon) 1.630kg
Belly (for roasting) 1.9kg
Loin Joint (wither for roasting or breaking down to make diced/minced pork: 1.9kg


In addition I have as yet unweighed fat, for larding;  half a head, for brawn;  and 2 pigs trotters.


We're currently making the brine to deal with the head and the ham;  and we'll shortly be dry curing the belly for the bacon.


I'll write more when I have more information.

The slightest whiff off Spring...

..and I have to throw open windows and doors to let the house breathe.

And then I find myself emptying the living room of furniture so I can get the dust bunnies and tumbleweed,  and give the floor a good scrubbing.   Then leave it to dry with the fresh air blowing through.

Or, perhaps more accurately,  I start by moving one of the sofas into the middle of the room and am horrified at the number of lost treasures I find under there, all nestling in tumbleweed and dust bunnies.  And because the sofas have electric bits to lift up the legs, I can't actually move them that far,  so it becomes a dance of military precision: move furniture, sweep floor, wash floor, scrub bits; whilst part A is drying,  move furniture elsewhere in the room and go through the same  process; while B is drying, do it in a third area.  Then move A back, revealing D to be cleaned, etc etc etc.   Eventually, all done and moved back.  And clean.  Until I light the stove anyway.

The next whiff of Spring will probably see me doing all the curtains in the house.  Unless I happen to be cleaning another room at the time

Shampoo Champagnoise

2011 is a Significant Anniversary for us.

In fact, it's made up of series of events each of which is worth celebrating for its significance..

Yesterday was one such day.  It was a Noteworthy occasion.  We debated whether to go out to dinner to celebrate, but decided not to.   It was, however,  important enough to open something special to toast with.

I'm not that keen on Champagne, but I do like a variery of other wines made in mehode champagnoise.     I opened it last night, being careful to twist the bottle not the cork.    There was no shaking or disturbance.  The cork didn't fly off, it came out correctly.  But then the contents erupted.  In a shower of champagnoise, I put the bottle on the table and watched, everything in slow motion.  There wasn't any point trying to cover the top of the bottle, that would have just made the contents evacuate over a wider area.

The table as sodden.  My hair was sodden. My clothes, the chairs, the floor....  In total, over half the bottle evacuated.

But it tasted delicious. What was left of it, anyway.

Teeny weeny egg

Another pic from my camera.

Looks like a Cadbury's mini egg.

Bathing beauty

I've just been downloading some pics from my camera, and I found this one.

Custard hadd a particularly poo-ey bottom, and I had to give her a quick bath and blow dry

Done, And Ouch.

Well Milly eventually laid her egg, and I was able to go and empty the nest box, scrub it, jet wash it, Poultry Shield it.  I also tried to clean the roof with the pressure washer. At some point I realised that I was bitterly cold, and I came in to get a warm coat and warmer gloves.   I didn't finish that bit, which I'm sure I'll regret.

Then I jet washed the nest box divider. It's wooden, so I put it in the house (our house) to dry overnight. I've put the single nest box wall back in the coop for now.  As they've all been trying to squash in to the same nestbox, perhaps they'll prefer it.  But actually I'm in no doubt the Girls will voice their disapproval tomorrow morning.

I then got some old towels and dried everything,  and then started to put things away.   It's surprising how long it takes to re-roll up the extension lead, and the hose,  and the pressure washer bits when one is cold and tired.

Then, poo trays back in and lined with Aubiose.  The back, back on.   Fresh Aubiose in the nestbox.  Everything away.

And my back hurts. A lot. 


I have a Chiro check up tomorrow, fortunately, so she can take a look.  I'm off to try a steam bath to see if that helps.

Still not going to plan

I connected the long hose to the water butt, so I could reach the cube.   Managed to get everything over there (other end of the Garden),  and found that Milly, Lily and now Daisy were squashed into one nest box. 

I did some gentle scrubbing.  I emptied the unoccupied nestbox of it's Aubiose (to put in the poo trays).  I went back to the patio, and towelled off everything.   

I've been backwards and forwards.  Lily and Daisy are in the garden. Milly is still sitting, refusing to budge. 


It's getting overcast, and overly cold. 


Grrr.

Things don't go according to Plan

The Cube needs a really good scrubbing.  

Until the trees were recently pruned, the branches overhung it, and we've ended up with creeping green whatever all over it.   Normally this doesn't happen, as I give (gave) the Cube a good scrub and jet wash every 4-6 weeks.

During the winter, this didn't happen.  It was partially a feature of the weather, and the outside tap being turned off completely.  It was partially a feature of having 8 hens, and those who were laying taking all day to do so - so it was hard to find a big enough window to get the cube dismantled, scrubbed, dried and reassembled.  It was partially a feature of laziness.

I've been waiting for a sunny day...a sunny day when I am not working... and we just haven't had one.   Today was dryish, and not too cold,  so I took a bucket of warm water and started scrubbing the outside.   I took Fairy Liquid with me,  but wasn't able to use it because the Girls were greedily drinking the discharged water.


Having got a lot of the greeny stuff off,  I decided I might as well do the roosting bars and the poo trays.  A couple more partial buckets of water later, and I thought I'd finish these off and then jetwash everything. DH mentioned the other day that he had turned the garden tap back on.

I carried all the removable bits over to the patio,  put some Virkon in a bucket of water and gave them a final scrub.  I then went to get out the pressure washer,  found the key to unlock the kitchen window to pass the plug through,  connected it all up, and got ready to pressure rinse the bits.  Nothing. 

There was a stop thingy on the hose. I went back to the tap, which had a multi way thingy on it.  I couldn't work out what was on or off, so I unscrewed it. I was left with the tap and no water.  I tried it both ways - righty tighty and loosey lefty.  No water.

In the kitchen, I looked at the amazing array of pipes under the sink (it comes of having a meter, and a water softener, and not having the water softener connected to the outside tap nor the dishwasher. And having 3 kitchen taps. 

Anyway, it was fairly easy to find the pipe to the outside.  It was partially on. Or partially off.  I turned it one way, all the way, and went outside.  Nothing. I turned it the other way, all the way, and went outside. Nothing.  


Back inside, we now had a steady drip, not in a good way.  I phoned DH.  He suggested I used the water butt.

So, I found some hose to connect the water butt to the pressure washer, and I rinsed everything.  Then I sprayed everything with Poultry Shield.

By now, it was starting to get a bit chilly.  I couldn't get the hose to the pressure washer to reach to the Cube, so I thought I would go and scrub the inside with Virkon.  My thinking was that by the time I was done, DH would be home and all would be fixed.     More hot water.   And then I found Milly and Lily (who has already laid an egg this morning) sitting in the nest box.

So I've come inside to write this, while I'm waiting for her to Get On With It.  Then perhaps I can get scrubbing. 

Although it is a bit chilly now...

What goes on in their little heads?

Sunday morning.  We get a lot of egg-announcement type crowing.  Lots of it. Non stop.    When it goes on like this, it usually means that someone is hogging the nestbox, and someone else wants to lay.

I got up and went outside to have a look.  6 hens looked at me, as though butter wouldn't melt in their beaks.  None of them was crowing.   Not even Florence, who I'd seen crowing when I looked out of my bedroom window.


I peeped into the Cube, looking through one of the air vents.  I could see that Custard (one of our 4 youngest girls) was sitting in one of the nest boxes,  and Lily was standing on the roosting bars trying to get into the same next box.  Using the one next door clearly wasn't under consideration.


I watched, and saw Lily trying to get into the nestbox with Custard.  Custard wouldn't budge.  In the end, Lily sat across Custard.  I left them to it and went back to bed.


Later, I got up, showered, dressed.  Went out at 10.00 to let the Girls out and noticed that Lily and Custard were missing.  They were now side by side in the nestbox.


At 10.50, I went out to see whether we had any eggs, and found Lily and Custard still squashed together.    I opened the egg port, and gently felt around underneath them, pulling out 3 eggs.  One was definitely Lily's (white),  one was Florence's, and the third one was either Custard, Roobarb or Tilda's.   I need to see them side by side to be able to tell which is which.


Once I removed the eggs,  the Girls came out of the nestbox.


Surely Custard isn't going broody already?! It's only February!

Funny how things become "normal"

We had 3 hens originally.  

One died very soon after we got them and, as is best practice, we decided to introduce 2 new girls.   After keeping them separate, and then gradually introducing them,  this meant we had 4 girls in our Run.

I remember DH and I talking about whether we would get more, and we both agreed that 4 was probably enough in the size of run we had. (3mx4m + a T piece).  My neighbour asked if we would be getting more, or was 4 enough? (SHe wasn't being funny, it was a genuine enquiry).

Then Scarlett's crop got impacted, and we weren't able to save her.   3 birds didn't seem enough, so, as is best practice,  we got 2 more.  After keeping them separate and then gradually introducing them, this meant we had 5 girls in our run.  We added an extra 1m squared to the T piece of the run.  5 Girls seemed enough.    We couldn't imagine only having 3 again.

Then Jasmine (one of the last two to be added) died suddenly.    We were down to 4 Girls.   It was OK.  We agreed we would wait until we had another loss before adding any more.

On the Allotment, we needed to add to our breeding flock.  We bought 2 gorgeous Welsh Blacks  and, on impulse, some Australorp hatching eggs.  One of the WBs laid an egg on the way home, so we incubated that as well , along with the Australorp eggs, and a few of our Sasso breeding flock eggs.  We only had 1 Australorp hatch,  plus the Egg that was laid on the way home,  and the breeding eggs.  Only 2 of the Sassos  were Girls.


All of the chicks lived happily together.  The Australorp turned out to be a Girl, and I wanted to add her to my garden flock.   You can't introduce only 1, so  I was trying to source a similarly aged Gold Campine girl.   It didn't work out, so we decided we'd add one of the Sassos to the Garden flock as well.  The Egg, a Welsh Black, we had planned for her to join our breeding flock. Youcan't introduce only 1, so we decided to keep the other Sasso as well.

Now, the 4 Girls were very young, far too young to introduce to either grown up flock, so we kept them all together.  We were running out of space at the Allotment, the weather was rubbish,  so we took the decision to introduce all four to our Garden flock,  and then in the Spring we would introduce the two breeders  to the breeding flock.


The introductions, despite taking it very slowly and starting with separate accomodation, were very, very painful.  The four youngsters, despite being at point-of-lay when we finally started to let them mix with the established Garden Girls,  were mercilessly bullied.  There wasn't any blood drawn it rarely got that physical,  but they really were harrassed. It was horrible.

Once minute I felt dreadful for the newbies, who had been living as a little group of 4 so happil, until I introdced them to the Big Girls.  I felt especially awful when they started to try and dominate each other.   The next minute I was feeling awful for my established Girls, who had been living quite happily as a group of 4.  The reorganising of the pecking order meant that myoldest girl, the head chook,  was having her authority challenged and she was losing it.  That would not have happened if I hadn't introduced newbies.

Eventually, peace broke out.  We currently have 8 hens in the Garden.  We extended the T piece by another 1.5 square metres.   They free range all day, every day.   

I'm not sure that the two earmarked for the breeding flock will go and join the breeding flock.  It's not, as you might think, that I have grown so attached to them that I want them as my pets.  Of course, that's part of it.  But that's more of a "..and another thing.." rather than the real reason.

The real reason is that both flocks are stable at the moment.  If I introdue 2 newbies to the breeding flock, we - and they, of course - are going to have to live through those weeks of horribleness.  Not only will it be hard on the two interlopers, it's not going to be much fun for the established breeding girls.  And it may cause pecking order repercussions here.


It's now become "normal" to see 8 girls in my garden.  Of course, I can't imagine having any more than 8.  If and when one of them dies (which is likely to be sooner rather than later,  our oldest Girl is definitely showing her age),  we will not replace her with 2 hens.      We'll wait until we get to 6 or fewer, and then look at additions.

Famous last words?

Net result

We're planning to extend the pens at the Allotment, and so we needed some more electric fencing to cover the new layout.      

I saw recently that Omlet has changed their netting.  The new netting can't be electrified, but it is interesting.  It's significantly taller than the electric netting,  it has much smaller squares at the bottom making it suitable for smaller hens, or partially grown chicks,  and it has a new style of post which is easier to push into the ground.


I coudn't justify buying any for our garden,  although I could see the extra height might reduce Lily's escape episodes.    So when DH mentioned he needed more electric fencing, the solution presented itself.


I bought an appropriate length of new Omlet netting,  and gave DH the equivalent lengtj of my older, electrifiable, stuff.


Everyone is happy.   Apart from the Girls who have discovered that they can't really get their heads through the netting to reach the greener grass.  Lily did have a darned good try though.


I see Omlet have also started to do Walk In Runs, using the same coated weldmesh that they use for their normal runs.  They come complete with fox proof skirts.   If I didn't already have a walk in run, I think I would be looking at buying one of theirs.

Baking, again

This morning I got up early to bake some cakes to take to a business meeting.

First up, some carrot and cardamom cupcakes.  I needed to get these made first as they need to be iced. And to be iced, they need to be cold.     I had weighed out most of the ingredients last night, but the carrots needed to be peeled and grated immediately before using.    Eventually, they were in the oven.

While they were cooking, I started to make the second batch, Banana and Cinnamon Muffins.   Everything was going well,  although I had to steal half a banana set aside for DH breakfast to make up the required 400g.   The Buttermilk was still in the fridge from last week's butter making.... it's started to sour, so I hope it's OK in this recipe.  Again, I had made weighed out the dry ingredients last night.  I had got to the last step (mixing in the mashed bananas) and the cupcakes were still in the oven.  I only have one deep bun tin, so I cleared up.

Cupcakes were done,  out of the tray, put the tray to cool, carried on clearing up.  I'm not normally an especially messy cake cook,  but because I had weighed out so much last night, I had debris everywhere.

Eventually the tin was cool enough for me to put out the muffin cases,  and away we went.   I had my shower and got dressed while they were baking.

The muffin recipe says cook for 20-30 mins.  I had set the timer for 20 mins, and they weren't quite done. Another 5.  Then I was casually reading through the recipe, and I realised that they were on the same heat as the cupcakes (equiv gas mark 4), and they should have been lower.   Bother.

I turned the temperature down. Futile, I know.   The next time I tested them, the skewer came out clean...so they are sitting in the muffin tin now, cooling slightly,  before I turn them out on to a baking sheet.

They smell OK.

I'm normally quite good at cakes, not sure what has happened!  Never mind, if they don't turn out right I can turn them into emergency trifle bases.

Baking

Well, I made the macaroons.

I decided to follow Margeurite Patten's recipe, in her Baking book.  I was a bit unsure about how much to whip the egg whites.  She says "until they are just frothy" and advises against trying to whip them to firm.   But exactly when is "just frothy"?

The first signs of frothiness appeared very quickly.  But I couldn't believe that was it. So I whipped faster and for longer. When I say "I", I mean "using my mixer, I".  I stopped. Still frothy.  I had another whizz. And another.    

Eventually my nerves couldn't stand it, and I stopped.   I muxed everything else in,  and then made little thingummies on baking trays.    I popped two trays in the oven.

How to tell if they are done?  The cooking time depends on size.  Uh-huh.    Right.  Well, I had more balls than the recipe should have yielded,  so let's assume that I need the shortest amount of time.      But looking at them, how can you tell? Should they be crisp? Soggy? Moist? 


I still have 4 egg whites in the fridge, and a big bag of almonds so I can make another batch of ground almonds if necessary.  So, I got them out and they are cooling on the baking sheets as I type.


We'll see.