A few more pictures of fall. These are from a couple weeks ago when the weather was still reaching into the sixties during the afternoon. The temperatures dropped significantly last week, by twenty degrees both during the days and nights. So we have switched gears from savoring the last of the warmth, to scurrying about like mice trying to prioritize and get ready before the snow comes. Everything is out of the garden. Everything is frozen now, even the kale, broccoli, the beets and hardy greens under row covers, all frozen. Certainly no big losses, I like to leave a little of everything just to see how long it makes it. I was by how hardy the broccoli and the parsley were, kickin it right up to the very end. Dustin chipped the last of the potatoes out of the ground today, and even some of them were frozen through.
Our hallway is lined with buckets and boxes of potatoes and tomatoes. The onions and garlic are hanging indoors. Today I started an experimental root storage using hay bales. In the center of the stack I laid out about twenty pounds each of carrots and beets along with some bagged turnips. I'm going to check on them often. I'm hoping that the temperature in the middle of the pile will stay above freezing into November at least.
Last week I ground pork and caribou and made three types of sausage. I also cured and smoked thirty pounds of pork belly for bacon, along with a twenty two pound ham. Everything turned out great. As outwardly optimistic as I was, I admit that when it came time to fry up the bacon I was a little nervous, but it tastes like bacon, it's great.
Ah, so long fall.
Avery's birthday cupcakes.
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4 comments:
Those cupcakes look delightful!! xo m.
Did you use a brine or a dry cure for your bacon? Did you smoke it?
Bruce, I loosely used the Holiday Ham recipe and the smoke bacon recipe both out of Charcuterie by Ruhlman and Polcyn. So the bacon recipe was pretty much a rub of maple sugar, maple syrup, and salt. I left out the pink salt. I had the bacon in a couple two gallon freezer bags and flipped them daily. So it kinda turned into a brine although it was juice from the bacon itself. I did smoke it, and the first section we've tried is nicely smoked. It didn't come up to temperature in my smoker so I finished heating it in the oven. I only had so much room in the smoker so I did a couple on the grill, I don't think they will be as smoked as the ones in the smoker. It is a little on the salty side - but that is bacon - and it is really fatty compared to the slabs we've bought locally. But I'm happy with it. I've been wondering if I should just render the pig fat that I initially cut off the pig before it was cooked. Or if I can also render the fat off the bacon or smoked ham? Or what else I should do with it other than feeding the birds. I have lots of duck fat for frying potatoes in.
Love the cup cakes. And hearing you put food up ahead of me. It keeps me motivated to keep up with what our garden is kicking out.
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