Tour of a post pig pasture

Chad was asked to show what a pasture looks like when the pigs are done with it - this is a video of a pasture the day our pigs left it, and a discussion of how we rotate our animals and why.

You can follow us at https://www.facebook.com/stampsfamilyfarm

If you are interested in pigs specifically, I run a facebook group about that -
https://www.facebook.com/groups/pasturedpigs/

If you are interested in more general homesteading and permaculture topics, I have a group for that as well - https://www.facebook.com/groups/midwesthomestead/

Couple notes.

The pigs will not be on this spot again for a year. I'll probably have cows or sheep over this area once between now and then.

I call the milkweed 'butteryfly bush'. I misspoke, but hopefully the reason is evident. I've had butterflies and pollinators on my mind lately.

I mention Peter Allen - you can follow his farm at http://www.mastodonvalleyfarm.com/

I'm doing 2 week rotations this year. I'll reassess next spring - a week might be better, but it's at least partially dictated by my own time.

At this time I had not reseeded the pasture - that was completed about a day after they left. Ideally it would have been done a few days before they left so they could stomp the seed into the ground. I'll be doing that with the next paddock so I can show the difference later.

A February Thaw and Babies on our Farm: Pictures

Dirty Wild Rice Dressing

Recipe for Dirty Rice Dressing

2 cups of wild rice

6 cups of broth (I like lamb or chicken, either works)

1 cup of water

1/2 cup of butter (1 stick)

1 lb of ground sausage (I used Traditional Bratworst, but I also like Green Onion in this recipe)

1 celery stick diced

1 onion diced

1 red bell pepper diced 

This is what was in the seasoning packet that our customers purchased at Prairieland Herbs:
3 T of seasoning salt (Swamp Fire is what I used, slap yo' mama works too)

1 T of Alebepo pepper

1 T of dried shallot

1 bay leaf

Bring the broth and water to a boil. Add the seasoning packet/mix and stir. Add the wild rice and stir in. Let simmer on low until the water/broth level is at the top of the rice (this takes 40 minutes to an hour). Turn off the heat and cover. Let rest while browning the sausage in the butter. I know that seems like a lot of butter, but the recipe provides 12 cups of rice, trust me on the butter! 

When the sausage is browned and ready, add it to the rice. Then add the diced vegetables. You will be adding them raw. I like the crunch and texture they add to the mixture and they will cook in the heat of the rice. Some folks I know caramelize the onion with the meat, but it isn't needed. The veggies are also where you can play a little. Like carrots? Dice some up and add them. Shallots? Go for it. Mushrooms. Yum.

Since I usually make this for a large gathering or samples, I then move the mix to a crockpot and keep on low/warm while serving. The rice just gets better and better.

One more tip- more than one person commented at our sample event about the amount of broth in ratio to the rice. Wild rice is not the same as minute white rice. The extra broth really is needed. The mix we use is a combination of 6-7 different wild rices, but the flavour is AMAZING.

Farmhouse Lunch

For every butchering group of pigs, we reserve back 1/2 a pig for our own family. From that we can taste the quality of the meat, the cures, and in general quality control. Today we broke out the best bacon our farm has produced.

The best? Honestly, it tasted much like our other best bacon, from the sows....but this bacon was different in a really important way. These pigs had no corn or soy input the last 6 weeks of their life. They had very little before that too. We were able to get enough real food inputs, with enough variety that they didn't have to eat the grain ration. That was awesome.Our worry was that the bacon  and the pork might not taste as good?

A couple observations right off: the fat that was bagged up for me to render into lard was very bright in colour, a lovely pink/peach. It will render white, but the colour is indicative of vitamin and nutrient content. I am excited about that.

The bacon fried up slow and had a good sound to it while sizzling. That is something I started noticing once we started paying attention to quality. The end product was the perfect crisp/chew ration.

So, for lunch I served up local apples, white cheddar, and bacon. My little foodies were all very attentive and gave good feedback too. Lily said the fat was very bright in taste, Holly thought it was just salty enough. Isaac liked to eat it with the apples.



Me? I liked how well it went with my maple cream coffee. It was that kind of day, y'all.

Super Hero Soup (Hamhock and Beans in a French Pot)

 Little bit of a story first, my kids first looked at their bowls of bean soup with disdain and distrust. They like kidney beans, but all these funky beans, all in one pot? No way. So, I started eating one bean at a time, sharing the back story and the magic of each of the six beans.

1) The ability to sing like an opera star! Ahhhhhhh! LALALALALA! Figaro!
2) Jumping as high as a monkey!
3) Dancing forever!
4) The antidote to magic non stop dancing
5) The ability to sneak like a ninja
6) Super strength silly beans!


The carrots get eaten for night vision, the onion for stinky monster breath, the ham for protein and brain power and strong bones, celery for sonic hearing, and.....apples for good health (protection against monster sneezes).

The gobbled the soup. They asked for seconds. Dinner was hilarious. Easy. Frugal.

Without further ado, I present Super Hero Soup!!!!

 Start by running hot tap water, fill a bowl or pot, and cover the beans in the water by 3x the depth and then cover, set aside.

When they are ready to use they take up all of the water. I let them soak all day until an hour or two before the meal time.

In a separate pot, a crock pot or an oven roaster, place a hamhock and sprinkle with seasoning of choice. Salt, spices, and a bay leaf. Do not forget the bay leaf, it is very important.

 Add 3 stalks of chopped celery. I like to use the leafy greens of celery too. Next 3-4 large carrots chopped into bite size. 1 large onion, 2 medium tomatoes, and 1 gala apple. Any sourish apple will work, but I like gala or braeburn the best.

 Fill the pot with water and roast at 220 degrees Fahrenheit for 8 hours. Low on a crockpot, if that's what you are using.

A good hamhock will have a lot of good, deeply flavoured meat. It is hard to get to when making cuts, but falls of the bone when slow cooked.

 

This one had two full pounds of perfect, tender ham.

 

About 2 hours before meal time, drain, rinse, and then add the soaked beans.

Continue to cook until the beans are perfect and tender. 

This makes about sixteen servings. I freeze what our family of five doesn't eat. 

Recipe: Super Hero Soup

1 2lb hamhock

4 carrots

3 celery stalks

1 large onion

1 apple

2 tomatoes

water

2 cups of bean mix

seasoning and salt

bay leaf

Soak the beans while the meat and veggies simmer all day. 

Cook meat and veggies and spices in a pot of water for about 8 hours at 220 degrees Fahrenheit or in  a crockpot on low. Add the soaked and drained beans 2 hours before serving and finish cooking.

Serve with a hearty French bread or cornbread.

Jump around and be super silly while eating dinner. Savour the smiles, laughter, and sweet joy of children.

Ossabaw Island Pigs, a New Addition to Our Farm

Friday, Chad wrote this on our facebook page:

Danelle is on her way to pick up a breeding pair of Ossabaw Island Hogs - should have them in their pen learning what an electric fence is by this afternoon.

Generally speaking I don't put much stock in the differences associated with pig breeds...it's not the breed, it's how likely the breed was to have been bred at some point in it's family tree for confinement traits. Breeds like Berkshire, Large Black, or Mule Foot aren't necessarily better, they are just less likely than something like a yorkshire to have been bred for confinement. Even then you have to be sure to talk to the breeder to see how many generations they've been on pasture to be sure to get the right kind of traits for pasture. Even confinement hogs will remember how to be pigs again after a generation on grass or in the woods.

Ossabaws though...these are different. There are Ossabaws raised in confinement by scientists studying them due to their extremely efficient feed conversion, but they aren't bred with confinement traits in mind, and everyone raising them for meat has them in pasture or wooded areas. They remain for the most part, exactly as they are found in the wild.

They are descendants from the Spanish Iberian pigs that are run in the oak forest in spain to produce the most famous hams in the world. They were let go on Ossabaw Island south of Georgia* so they could naturalize and be a food source for the Spanish. Fast forward to today and they are much smaller pigs heavily adapted to foraging and living in harsh conditions on their own. They aren't 'improved' like almost all the other pig breeds - they retain as much piginess as is possible to have in farm raised pork. They have the darker richer flavor and marbling of the spanish Iberian, with the ability to efficiently convert extra feed into lard in large quantities.

We expect to begin offering meat from these pigs sometime next year - price still to be determined, but carcass size will be smaller...though, because they have superpowers, they produce about the same amount of bacon as one of our Berkshires would despite the small size.

They may be the perfect pig. : )

The drive was long and hot and I got lost twice, delaying our trip by nearly 3 hours and putting us smack into the intense and dangerous heat of the day that my 5 am departure was meant to avoid. I stopped and refilled icebags into the water pan twice. Poured cold water onto the pigs a few times too. It was not a good day for transport.

All said they settle in nicely. The kids learned a lot of 1920's and agricultural history (Bonnie and Clyde and why there are so many fruit orchards in Missouri). It was a hot, sticky, lovely road trip. 

*originally I had written Florida and that was a mistake. There is also new evidence that shows the pigs ancestry and I will share that soon!

Ribs and African Peanut Sauce

I have this recipe in my Better Homes and Gardens Cook Book that I go to whenever I feel nostalgic for my early days of eating.

It took about 4 years for my taste buds to start working again after a major health change. I started to actually taste food. Cheesecake. Curry. Coke in a glass bottle. Bacon. I fell in love with food. There were some things though that I could not get used to, like meat on a bone. Meat had to be breaded and boneless like bread. Yet, Chad insisted on buying a whole pig and then cooking it.

The first time I ever had ribs was this recipe. Of course I have changed it slightly, if you have the book you can find the original one easily. I embarrassed myself the first time I ate them. It was very cave lady like. Oh, and the sauce! I made the sauce for dipping egg rolls and pork chops in too, it is so very good. I never looked back. That is when the real change happened for me in how I looked at my food. Eating became enjoyable, I had reason to think cooking might someday too.

Place a rack of pork ribs bone side up and cook at 350 degrees F for 45 minutes, flip and cover in sauce, cook for another 30-45 minutes. Serve with extra sauce for dipping.

Sauce Recipe:
1 cup of peanut butter
1 cup of hot water
2 T lemon juice
1 t of Berbere seasoning from Pensey's or another curry type seasoning. Add more if you like.
Stir on low heat until smooth.

Mmmmm. Ribs. The kids gnawed on the bones after giving me a standing ovation. Every bone was licked clean. Even Isaac wanted more and more. I ate them with the same wild abandon as I did that first meal.

Gravy, it is all about the gravy.

I decided to split up my post about biscuits and gravy into two posts because gravy has earned its very own place in my kitchen.

Gravy is easy.

No. Really it is.

Oh, I know those of you unbelievers are shaking your heads now and thinking about just grabbing a jar or packet of gravy from the grocer.

Don't.

Gravy is just a roux base. I know, the term roux is fancy sounding and scary.

So, to start, the gravy I make for chicken fried steak is the same sausage gravy I use for biscuits and gravy. The exact same.

1 lb ground sausage
1  Portabella mushroom
2 T butter
2 T flour
1 cup chicken broth/stock
1 cup milk
2 T sour cream
1 T seasoned salt w pinch of cayenne

Start with a good ground sausage. Pastured pigs make the best sausage. I have used green onion, breakfast, or Italian sausage- they all work. I like the breakfast blend the best though. Fry it up brown. When it is half done, add chopped mushrooms. Brown until cooked and crumbly. Add butter. Once the butter melts add the flour and sprinkle it all over everything. Stir fast. Be ready with the broth. Once all the flour is wet with the grease and butter, add the chicken broth and stir furiously. It will thicken quick, add the milk when it thickens, stir furiously and turn the heat to low/medium. Add the sour cream and seasoning to taste. Turn the heat off entirely once it is as thick as you like.

See? Easy.

When making a chicken gravy, start with melted butter, add flour and stir until all the flour is wet, add 2 cups of broth and stir until it is as thick as you like. Season.

When making Alfredo type sauce: melt butter, add flour and stir until flour is wet, add 2 cups of milk and stir until it is as thick as you like, add 1 cup of cheese of your choice, gently stir off heat until cheese is melted, season. I like Asiago and Parmesan (Not the green can kind though, the real hard grate yourself kind, because I am a cheese snob. The green can stuff technically will work.)

Beef, lamb, chicken drippings, ect- all follow the same equation. Melted fat, add flour, add liquid of  your choice, stir furiously until thick and gravy.

Grampa Visits and We Move the Pigs!

This is the new fenced in pasture for the Berkshires. It has afternoon shade we didn't count on and lots of clover for them to play in. Soon the warm weather grasses will take off and they'll have even more to explore. This move means a lot farther for me to travel in the morning to do pig chores, but the pigs are, as Blueberry exclaimed, "HAPPY PIGGIES!"