Our Lovely Smokehouse

Praise and love to dear Uncle Robert!

When my brother heard that the hogs had been butchered, he offered to come up and help us construct a smokehouse. Well, had I any idea what he actually had in mind, I probably would have said "no thanks!" Haha! I'm very glad that the runaway train left the station before I could say anything, because what we have now is so beautiful and wonderful that I don't even care about the intense undertaking it ended up being.

I'm not going to explain, step by step, what we did...I will only tell you the basic elements involved and then leave you with a whole bunch of pictures of the process. There are as many ways to build a smokehouse as there are fish in the sea...so long as a few basics are kept in mind, and so long as the smoker is patient with him/herself, it will work gloriously and all involved will eat like kings!

The smokehouse we constructed is intended for cold smoking meats, cheeses, nuts and a whole variety of food stuffs. Cold smoking is a much more involved (but time worthy!) method of smoking food which enables the smoker a wider selection of smoke styles. The smoke flavors the meat and begins to preserve it without cooking it in a normal "heat meets meat" way. Due to the absence of a lot of heat, you can smoke things for much longer, arrive at much more complex flavors and smoke many more types of foods than with a typical high heat smoking method. 

The important factors to consider when constructing a smokehouse for cold smoking:

-Creating a critter and bug proof structure.

-Creating a firebox which removes the heat of the fire from the smoking area.

-Creating a place for the smoke to go...so, a venting system of some sort, so that the smoke can pass over the meat.

-Creating a smoking area where meat can be hung/racked without touching(other pieces of meat).

We got the draft on our smokehouse just right and the chimney just sucks the smoke right up into the house. If anyone has any questions about what we did, materials used, etc...just ask in the comments and I will answer!

With all of that in mind...enjoy the pictures of our smokehouse construction!

Happy Smokehouse. Thank you, Uncle Robert! We love you so much...now, time to get smoking! This thing is going to be jamming! 

Who Doesn't Love Bacon?

Crazy people, that's who!

Well it's been about a year since I've updated this blog! In that year we've gone from two babies to three, upped our production of rabbits and much, much more. I solemnly swear to get better at this blogging thing...and now that I've made my apologies, let me make it up to you, dear readers! Today, I'm going to talk to you about something that everyone loves: Pork. Specifically, homestead cured and smoked, all natural bacon.

So, to get into it! We butchered hogs a while back and I had about 200 pounds of pork in the chest freezer. Only one thing to do now, let's say it together: MAKE BACON!

The first thing to do, of course, is thaw your pork bellies in the refrigerator. When the belly is thawed, give it a good rinse, pat it dry and marvel at the gorgeous chunk of meat you are about to handle:

Go ahead and take a moment to gaze into its perfect fattiness....yes yesss, here's a closer look:

That is nice, is it not? Now that you want it (BAD!) let's chop it in to pieces that are easier to cure and, later, hang and smoke:

My first belly sliced into four perfect pieces. Now that we have manageable pieces of belly, let's prepare our curing agents. I have been around bacon-making but have never done it alone with my own bellies before. So I decided to go with a basic dry cure...the usual suspects you'll find in many a recipe. Tried and true:

                                                               1C kosher salt
                                                      3/4C Organic Brown Sugar
                                                                3TBS Thyme
                                                        1TBS Fresh Black Pepper
                                                              1TBS Coriander

The Coriander is just because I put at least a little bit of curry in everything. Yeah, just about everything. It's good, try it...just start sprinkling it in everything you cook. Anyway, it gets to looking like this when you mix it up:

Next, rub it all over the pork!  Always be generous with your bellies, you need lots of salt rubbed in there to suck out the moisture in the meat and generous amounts of everything else for good flavor, so have at it! It will look something like this when you are done:

 Now, stack it in the fridge in the bins and let it sit for about a week, making sure you turn it over once a day so that as the pool of juices seeping out of the meat begins to form, you do not have it sitting in juice on one side and not the other. NOTE: Use plastic or glass for dry curing meat, NOT metal.

These bins were super cheap at Market Basket and fit perfectly right where I wanted to keep them, so that is excellent. A couple of days into curing, the bellies are starting to feel firm and are looking (and smelling!) fantastic!

The recipe for the curing ingredients gave me a good amount more than I needed..so I saved the extras and every other day would rub a bit more into the slabs.

On day six, they are looking very nice:

After seven full days of curing, I'm getting antsy to start smoking them. They are just as I think they are supposed to be...feeling firm, turning a lovely shade and showing a nice collection of juices in the bottom of the dish they are curing in. The next step will be smoking them in our brand new smokehouse that we've been killing ourselves to make! Intrigued? Stay tuned.... ;)

Pickling, for pickles sake.

Hello, people. Let's make some pickles. Before I say anything else, I want it noted that this recipe calls for a 12-hour soak in brine before the cucumbers are processed for pickling, so please keep that in mind.

Now, I don't know about you, but in my world, few pickles can claim superiority over a nice, crisp dill. The classic dill pickle seemed the natural place to start as I spread my wings and take off into the wide world of pickling.

You'll remember all of the equipment you need from the previous canning post: Introduction to Canning: Applesauce, or you can go and read that to get a feel for the basic equipment needed.

A word of caution, I suppose: We all know the saying "measure twice, cut once" - best to make all necessary preparations and spend the time squaring away sterilization before you are "in the thick of it"...which is to say, "sterilize properly once, don't suffer botulism later". So, yeah, I'm not going to harp on it here on the ole blog too much, but I would love it if all of my friends took cleanliness in canning seriously, as I do, at home!! :)I haven't heard of too many bad stories about home-canned goods, but the few I have heard of were SO terribly bad! Don't want to go there now do we?

Enough chit chat. Making Dill Pickles.

Selecting canning cucumbers is the first step. Canning cukes are not too terribly expensive and, while they can be found during certain times of the year at the chain grocery store, they are sold so cheap and commonly by farmers in any given area that it's really worth checking out how to come by them from a local, organic source.

A good cucumber for canning is dark green, with lots of warts and a firm (but not bloated) feel to it. Pale or yellowing cukes or cucumbers that feel slightly soft or are very smooth are past their perfect pickling prime and should be passed up, if possible, as they don't make quite as crisp and delicious a pickle.


Ingredients:

- 8 or so pounds of fresh pickling cucumbers
- A couple of gallons of water (for brining the cukes)
- 1 and 1/2 cups of canning/pickling salt (note: do NOT use table salt for canning)
- 1 and 1/2 quarts apple cider vinegar
- 1/3 cup of sugar
- A couple of quarts of water for your pickling solution
- Pickling Spice - between two and three tablespoons (found at the grocery store)
- Mustard Seeds (a tall bottle should do)
- Dill Seeds (again, a bottle should do for this recipe)
- Garlic (a number of cloves, minced)

The NIGHT BEFORE you plan to pickle:

Dissolve 3/4 of a cup of canning salt in a couple of gallons of water and pour over your cucumbers in a large bowl or pot. Leave them to sit in this brine over night, or 12 or so hours and then discard the liquid.

When you are ready to get started, after the 12 hours brining, wash your cucumbers in cold water.

Before you do anything else, make sure your jars are sterilized and waiting, your lids are in a shallow pan on the stove to be sterilized and your canner is full of hot water, on the stove working it's way to a boil.

1. Cut the cucumbers on both ends keeping in mind that, if you are using pint-sized jars, they will need to be short enough to allow for a 1/4-inch space above the top of the cucumbers and pickling solution. After the ends are cut, slice them length ways for spears or, if you want bread and butter style pickles, cut them across in smaller pieces.



2. Combine in a large, non-reactive pot:

- 1 and 1/2 quarts vinegar
- 1/2 cup (+/- to preference) canning salt
- 1/4 - 1/3 cup sugar
- 2 quarts water

Measure out 2 to 3 tablespoons of the pickling spice into some cheese cloth and secure it and drop it into the pot with the rest of the pickling mixture. Heat the mixture to near boiling temperature, just a rolling sort of simmer.

3. In the bottom of each jar, put about 1 teaspoon of mustard seed, 1 to 1 1/2 teaspoon of dill seed and about 1 teaspoon of the minced garlic.

4. Pack the jars full of the cut cucumber spears, again, making sure they do not reach above 1/4-inch from the top of the jar and, once all the jars are packed, remove the spice bag from the pickling mixture and pour the mixture over the pickles in each jar.

5. Now you're ready to place the lids on each jar and screw the rings on top, hand tighten and place in your jars in your canner basket.

Lower the tray/basket into the briskly boiling water and boil the jars for 10 minutes. Once your timer goes off, remove from the canner and bring to a cool, dark and out of the way place for them to cool. As with the applesauce, you will know that the jars are properly canned if, when gently pressed, the lids on the jars are all the way sucked in and don't pop in and out and make a "pinging" noise.

Make sure you give your pickles time to sit and develop good flavor before you sample them. Some people day a few days should do...I would wait a few weeks.

When I made these pickles, I created an experimental version with twice as much garlic and the addition of hot pepper flakes...I can't wait to sample these spicy garlic dill pickles and tell you all how they turned out!

Next time: Pickled Beets <---- a reason to get out of bed in the morning. Also, Pickled Carrots...you know you want some!

Introduction to Canning: Applesauce.

Can we learn to can? Yes....and we should!

I am finding that, not only is canning a wonderful and easy way to stock your pantry with the locally grown tastes of the season to enjoy year round AND a great way to preserve and create different flavors to enjoy...but it is also a really fun way to eliminate waste in the kitchen. Scraps and bits and pieces of things always find a tummy to call "home" around here between dogs and chickens and rabbits (and babies!) - but it feels like such a shame to let a bunch of perfectly fresh, whole veggies go to the animals because I can't think of what to do with them and don't want them to spoil.

I have discovered that it is just as easy to set yourself up for canning a quart or two of something extra you have hanging around in your fridge as it is to set up for canning a bunch of something you bought with the intention to can...and, so, canning has gone from being something I'm very interested in, to something I cannot see myself living without as I go forward.

I think a really easy, fun and delicious way to get started in canning, is to can applesauce. Now, if you love apples in Fall like I do, you are already making applesauce and just keeping it in your fridge. But let's see what happens when we make a whole bunch of it to preserve and enjoy all year round...my guess? We'll all be much happier for it!

First things first; some tips:

- You'll want to pick some apples that are sweeter than apples you may use for, say, pie making or dehydrating. You are not looking for super tart, here...it's all about sweet with applesauce. Apples like Fuji, Gala and Yellow Delicious or Paula Reds are very good. If you aren't sure about the name of an apple...just take a bite, is it sweet? Then it'll do. My preference for starting with sweet apples is born out of my love of making applesauce with no added sugar.

- Make your applesauce with a blend of a few apples, it makes for a much better flavor.

- Do not ever just walk up to a farm stand and pay "retail" for bushels of apples. A main reason for making your own applesauce, is that you can save so much money...unless you're paying tourist prices at the local farm stand. Always call ahead and ask the people at the orchard what they are charging for "drops" or "utility apples"...these are apples that are perfectly fine for baking, etc, but may be smaller or misshapen or for whatever reason not "pretty enough" to sell to customers at the stand...so, the folks at the orchard will let them go for very good prices. This doesn't just go for apples. Anything that grows on trees can be pretty or, not as pretty but just as delicious. If you are going to get in the habit of using fruits for more than eating straight from the bowl, you'd better "get right" with the uglies!



I used two blends this year to make my applesauce:

Blend One: (mostly)Paula Reds, MacIntosh(very few, just to add a bit of tartness) and Gala.
Blend Two: Green Gravensteins, Galas, Ginger Golds, Zestars and a few MacIntosh.

Blend One is, by far, the better of the two. The taste is much yummier and sweeter. Blend Two is a bit different in consistency and more tart. I like having two kinds because Colin prefers tart applesauce while I love the sweet stuff. Mixing the two together also produces good results.

So, we've picked some nice sweet apples that we got for a great price...let's get ready to hit the sauce!



Ingredients:

- Apples (I used two bushels worth - each basket pictured above is a half bushel)
- Cinnamon
- Water
- A bottle of lemon juice

Equipment:

- A large canner (I use a water bath canner, I plan to get a pressure canner soon)
- About a dozen quart jars with caps and rings
- A shallow pan for sterilizing the caps
- A jar grabber
- Spoons, ladles, etc
- Large pot(s) for cooking apples
- Canning funnel <-- helps to get things into jars without making a mess and keeps the rim of your jar nice and clean, important for creating a good fit on the seal.

How to make applesauce:

This is the way I've always made it. Different people have different ways of doing it...cooking it with the cores and skins and using a sieve later, etc....I have always had smooth, delicious applesauce doing it like this, so this is how I do it!


Note: Get your canner full of hot water and heating up on the stove top before you do anything else. It takes a while to get it going to a boil and you want to make sure you are getting things in the canner still hot! While you're at it, make sure your Ball jars are sterilized and ready to go and that your sealing caps are ready to heat to a boil (and keep there for about ten minutes) in your shallow pan, on the stove.



1. Core and peel the apples you are going to turn into sauce, taking care to remove seeds and pieces of core that might get into the mix. Apples can be cooked in the spirals that are formed when one runs them through a corer, or in simple wedges. The chunkier the apples, the longer they stay firm when you cook them...the more control you have over how chunky they are after you cook them.


2. Put a bit of water (an inch or so) in the bottom of a large pot(s) and cook the apples on the stove. Bring them to a boil first and after they really get going, simmer them until they are soft (it shouldn't take long) taking care to give them a stir here and there to prevent sticking or burning.


3. When the apples are soft, ladle them out of the pots and into a blender or food processor. Blend them, in batches, to the desires consistency...you can go smooth or chunky! It is while they are in the blender that I add some cinnamon...usually around a half tablespoon per blender full, but you can add less or more, depending upon how much you like to have in your applesauce. (note: If it seems like there is a lot of water/juice in the pot when you are ladling the apples out and into the blender, feel free to drain each ladle full...the apples are so juicy/soft that you don't need all of the water/juice that will be in the pot and using it will surely lead to very soupy applesauce)



4. Get your Ball jars in a neat row on one side of you and put at the bottom of each jar 1 tablespoon of lemon juice. This is a tip my friend Amy gave me, that keeps the color of your applesauce from turning bad and adds extra acidity for canning purposes without affecting the flavor at all.



5. Now, as you blend and add cinnamon to each batch, pour it out into your jars with your funnel, taking care to leave about 1/4 to 1/2 an inch of head space at the top.

6. As each jar is filled, checking to make sure it's rim is clean, remove the cap from the water it was sterilized in and press it to the top of the jar and hand tighten the rings to the top.

7. Arrange your filled, capped jars in the basket of your canner and gently lower them into the boiling water of your canner. Let the water return to a boil, then start timing: 20 - 25 minutes.

(Note: If you happen to be reading this and are at an altitude higher than 1,00ft, please look up the appropriate time for you to bathe your jars in the canner)

8. When the timer is up, remove the jars from the water and, without knocking them around or jostling them too much, get them somewhere out of the way in your home to cool...let them sit around a day before you call them "done" and test the seal by gently pressing down in the center of the caps...if you hear a "ping" noise and the cap can push in, your seal is not proper. How you proceed is up to you, some people re-heat, re-jar and re-can them...some people just stick it in the fridge and call it applesauce...I am not knowledgeable enough to advise you at this time!

Look at that, you made some applesauce. :) This applesauce should have a shelf life of around a year. Keep it in a cool, dark place and enjoy. The more applesauce you have around...the more things you learn to love it on/with.

Stay tuned for more canning "tutorials"...coming up: Apple Butter, Dill Pickles and Spicy Garlic Dill Pickles...mmmm.

Hello, new blog!

Welcome, friends!

This is the first entry in my new blog. Hello, blog.

Here, I hope to document and share my experiences in homesteading life in the Great North Woods of New Hampshire.