Pork, Charcuterie & Freezers

Well, the pork has moved from the paddock to the kitchen & freezer, & some has moved to the plate & stomach too! Our 2 pigs were dispatched & butchered, giving us a dressed weight of 140kg of pork to process, not including the offal (used for pet food) & heads (used for new home made dog biscuits). We have made 5 hams, 2 bacons, 1 proscuitto, & 1 pancetta - all of which are now drying in the shade hanging on the verandah (thoroughly protected from all insects & other pests, including labradors), & have packed & labelled all of the rest. We still have to make sausages, chorizo & salamis etc, but have minced all of the meat & fat for that. It was a big job, taking quite a few days, & I'm glad it's now over. Thanks to Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's "Pig in a Day" DVD http://www.rivercottage.net/ & to the internet pancetta instructions (complete with YouTube). Still, I realised how much there is to learn about the history & practice of charcuterie, & so have ordered some Amazon books to add further French, Italian & English recipes to add to my repertoire. Other than frozen poached peaches (from our peach harvest), we now have most of our freezer space devoted to pork. Following Jamie Oliver's Saving our Bacon http://www.jamieoliver.com/tv/jamie-saves-our-bacon-1 which aired on Ausstar in March, I slow roasted a pork belly following his recipe, which was absolutely delicious, & the leftovers have gone well with a great red cabbage slaw with vinagrette, So, the proof of raising happy, well fed, free range pigs is definitely in the quality of the end product on the fork.

The garden harvest is still continuing, with plenty of beans, peas, snow peas, spinach, kale, carrots, herbs of all types, & rocket & sorrel for salads. Some very optimistic pumpkins are getting quite large, but it will be a battle to get many ripe pumpkins before the first frosts (usually expected around Anzac Day, but could happen at any time!). The choughs (black birds) have not only been digging up all of the garden mulch hunting for worms & bugs, but have been demolishing most of the ripe tomatoes, so unless I pick them when they have started to colour & ripen them inside, all I get are half eaten ripe ones. So for preserving purposes, I may have to try & buy a box of local tomatoes soon to make tomato sauce & pasta sauces. New seeds & seedlings have been planted out too, & autumn cuttings are being potted up.

The last batch of chicks for this season have hatched - another 12, & will be moved to their first outside secure accommodation later this week. The previous batch have just moved up to be with the older chicks in our small mobile Uncle Joe's pen, which is inside the Britannia enclosure with all of the adult Buff Orpingtons. They are still a bit nervous of the other chicks, but are settling in well. The broody bantams (all 6) have finally hatched 1 chick, which was promptly adopted by Hazelnut Cream, a Pekin/Silkie bantam hen named by my neice, who had not been broody at all - talk about getting the prize without doing any of the work! Anyway, it is quite funny to see 1 chick with 3 bantam mothers all telling it what to do! One of our Muscovy Ducks in Chookingham Palace is still broody, after sitting for a long time on some hens eggs that did not hatch, but still will not get off the nest. As long as she is eating & drinking, there is not much to be done to break the habit, since if I shut her out, she flies back in. Egg laying has slowed down in all of the pens, which is a bit of a relief, although I think the pigs had been helping themselves to the odd free range egg while they were here.

Autumn