Good LIfe week

I'm feeling a little virtuous (which upion rereading I think should really say "smug". Sorry). - it's been a bit of a "Good Life" week, albeit with the help of some of our best gadgets.

Buttermaking on Monday.  Thermomix.

The table birds were killed on Monday, and on Wednesday DH dressed them. We put the smallest to one side to cook that day, and the rest were jointed (and deboned), and put in the freezer.  I made chicken stock from the carcasses, using the recently purchased Ipot (electric pressure cooker).

 On Friday, we collected our half pig.  The lady who breeds them is only doing one litter a year now, as her sow is getting on a bit. We took this into account when deciding how to butcher it. We decided not to have large joints. Instead we cut  some small belly joints (which were deboned, to make them suitable for more recipes),  loin for bacon,  some small hams,  LOTS of diced pork,  minced pork, some shoulder set aside for pork pies, and an enormous quantity of meat for sausages.

We had to put the old freezer on to cope with everything!

I made lard, lots of lovely, snow-white, lard.  I made stock with the pork bones (Ipot).  

There were more, but we had to test them

This morning DH put some of the pork into cure, to make some small hams and some bacon.   He also made a mountain of sausages, which are spread out between the fridge and the freezers at the moment.   He had some sausage-meat leftover,  and fancied making sausage rolls.

We didn't have any puff pastry in the freezer, so I suggested looking for a Thermomix recipe for quick-puff-pastry recipe.  He found one in the standard Thermy cookbook,  and whipped up a batch in a jiffy - mainly thanks to the drawer full of frozen butter.  He'll be on Bake Off next!

He also made some trotter stock, which he'll use in pork pies tomorrow.

Food wise, we had roast chicken for dinner on Wednesday (thank you to Delia for her Fast Roast Chicken recipe).  We had risotto on Thursday, made with some of the leftover chicken and some of the stock. The rest of the cooked chicken has been bagged and frozen, for future risottos.

Last night,  I made chinese style spare ribs, also in the Ipot,  for dinner.  I used some home pressed apple juice, our own garlic, and one of  DH's Habanero chillis, in the recipe.    The remainder of the ribs are in a bag in the freezer for later use.

Arancini, waiting to be fried

Tonight we're having the sausage rolls, plus deep fried arancini (leftover risotto, well seasoned,which are flour/egg/breadcrumbed which are then deep fried. (Our own eggs and breadcrumbs).

It'll be served with dipping sauce (leftover from last night's spare ribs),  and home made Hummus. I even made the tahini for the hummus, by blitzing sesame seeds in Thermy.   The texture of the hummus is fine,  I need to work on my flavouring.

The apples are still sitting in crates waiting to be dealt with. I've been eating them all week and hardly made a dent in one crate.