Tuesay, November 3rd - all we can say is "YUMMMMM"

It's been another busy week. We are still working on pork. We didn't expect it to be quite so labour intensive but it's been well worth it.

Since last weekend, Lloyd's been busy finishing up the final processing of the meat. The hams are now smoked and the bacon was just finished yesterday. All that is left now if slicing and packaging the bacon.

The smoker that Lloyd built is pretty basic, using simple materials he was able to find, and/or negotiate for. Fortunately he has lots of time at work during the night to do research and figure out just how things are supposed to work. As our friend Charles has said in the past, "Inside Lloyd's head must be a pretty scary place!"

 This was an old commercial fridge that was found out in a field at the VanGaals farm. 

Gutted and given a bit of a retrofit, it was the perfect cabinet to house the smoking meat, all stainless steel inside and out, except for the outside panel on the new  insulated door..

 Because this was a cold smoking process, the fire is actually  on the outside 

and the smoke travels through the tubing into the box

The addition of some electronic controls helped in determining 

when the desired internal temperature is  reached

The wrapped boneless hams as well as the extra bones ready to be smoked

The finished product 

 Cooper just waiting for something to hit the floor or the ground!

On Monday of last week, Brenda came over and helped Lloyd make sausage.  Once everything was packaged and frozen, we took it all out and separated the various kinds so they could all be put away. We have Italian, Bratwurst, Hungarian, Chorizo, Breakfast sausages as well as patties, and English Bangers. There may be a couple of other types as well but I've forgotten what they were. It's quite an assortment and when all was said and done, there was 48 pounds of sausages in total.

Saturday afternoon we roasted our first piece of pork. We were busy with other stuff so just put it into the oven with some potatoes and carrots and let it do it's thing.

A delicious, and easy meal, with many thanks to Piggly Wiggly. (yes, as morbid as it sounds, we did label the packages)  They were two very different breeds of pigs and we wanted to be able to compare the flavours of each so we can decide what we'd like to raise next year.

Once the hams were done, it was time for the bacon slabs to go in. 

 The cured slabs ready to be smoked.

  Finally, cured, smoked and sliced and ready cook and  enjoy.

We had toasted bacon and tomato sandwiches for supper last night with tomatoes we'd grown ourselves and of course, our own bacon. There's really something very gratifying in having produced the food yourselves. I suppose it would have been even better had I baked the bread as well, but two out of three ain't bad! Next time.

Of course, the kicker came early last week with a big announcement about the fact that red and processed meats are now considered toxic. That may be but we know what our little piggies ate and the suasages are all meat, with no fillers. It may still be considered processed but we'll enjoy every bite.