Pork

We have finally killed our first pigs, so our Free Range Pasture Raised Pork Enterprise is officially official! It's early days yet, but we are really excited by the potential and so far have had some good comments about it. Juicy, tasty, no feed lot smell and the fat is divine! Well, I do agree on all those points, but then it's hard not to be biased when you have produced it yourself!

Recently our daughter brought out some left over roast pork - this was conventional pork that she had cooked a few days earlier. Our family don't believe in wasting food, so she brought it out for me to do something with. I cooked up a kind of stragonof thing, with fresh mushrooms (well, they were frozen ones that we collected previously), garlic and parsley (from the garden), onion and finished with some of my lovely fresh cream. I served it with pasta. Well the sauce was really nice, but I could not eat the pork! It really did not taste very good!

It's not much point eating it if it tastes that bad and I suppose it's not wasted when we have dogs!

It's a bit of a problem for us really, because we are getting to the stage that we can't eat conventional food. Have we become so accustomed to eating our own or other organic produce, that we can't stomach other foods. It's been a long time since I have "enjoyed" junk food, but to not even be able to buy the usual supermarket produce is another thing altogether! Oh well, I just suppose we have to convert all our friends and family into buying good quality and healthy food!

Free Range Pigs

We have just returned from a weekend workshop about starting a free range pig business. It was good, and we learnt a lot about pigs, but it was only necessary for us to do it because of the Intensive Pig Industry. We can run cattle or sheep or goats on our property, but to run pigs, we need to have a Certificate. It shouldn't be any different to cows, as we want to run them in paddocks and use the same grazing principles for them as we do for our cattle, but unfortunately, the "powers that be" don't think the same!
There is a code of practice that states that pigs should be allowed to act as pigs. The only way this can be done is to allow them to free range - not in a bare dirt paddock or a shed! And....I must add, that the supplementary feed should be placed in a trough, not just on the ground! Pigs do eat dirt (incidently not deliberately) as they like to dig in it, but they don't NEED to eat it.

Pigs eat a lot of grass and this will always be their first preference, so it's essential that they have free access to it! They also need to eat a grain supplement, which will include meat meal. Pigs are omnivores and so they do eat grain, grass and meat. Just like us - we need a balanced diet too! The big difference with us, is that we need to make sure that we don't eat too much of a good thing!

If you were to eat true pasture raised pork and conventional shedded pork in a blind taste test, you may think that the stronger flavoured pork is the free range. This is because one of them will have a "gamey" taste. True free range pork tastes fantastic (and simple) - it is not strong flavoured at all! The "gamey" flavour, which you will find is the shedded pork, is not a wild taste, but a taste of their own effluent! So, next time you want to try pork, PLEASE try a pasture raised or organic piece of pork to try and see if you can taste the difference!

Another story I must tell.......at the workshop, we where in the paddock with some young gilts (females before they are mated) and were standing around in a circle talking. One gilt, who wouldn't allow us to pat her, came over and "sat" in on our conversation! About 6 of us humans were standing in a circle and she was sitting on her haunches  in the circle and just being "part" of the discussion. Pigs are very intelligent and should NOT be kept in pens in sheds.

Pig - using everything but the Oink!

Well, the title is misleading, but I like it, and one day, maybe I will........

We recently killed a pig and I decided to have my first crack at bacon, make some brawn and try some things that we don't normally eat. We had some of the liver, which we don't normally eat and I don't think we will bother again! It's a lot stronger than beef liver.

Today I had my first try of the brawn.....I will be doing that again! It's made from the head and the feet of the pig. I did half a head and two trotters - next time I would add more meatie stuff like the hocks or shoulder chops, but even as it is it's really good and it just set so perfectly. The addition of the trotters is to add the extra geletin that's needed to make it set and hold together. When I cooked the brawn I included both ears, but took them out before making the brawn. I wanted to try something with them, as I'd seen a recipe in a recipe book - Crispy Pigs Ears. The recipe didn't quite work, but it was very good.

The ears are sliced and then crumbed and fried and finished off in the oven. My crumbs didn't stick but the idea is good and I will be trying again to perfect it - just need to wait until we kill another pig. I served the ears with some wilted greens - shallots, asparagus, snowpeas and warrigal greens. Everything was home grown - well, the warrigal greens were picked out of the paddock. They are a native green vegetable and is used just like spinach. It grows on creek and river flats naturally, and is really nice. It's similar to spinach in that it should be cooked, although I have used it in pesto and salads without any dramas. I think you need to eat about 4 cups in one sitting to be a problem, so that's not likely!

If anyone wants the recipe for Brawn or Crispy Pigs Ears, you will have to ask for it. I will post a photo of my brawn as it looked really good!

The bacon was also really good! I didn't smoke it as I don't have a smoke house, it was just cured in the fridge for a couple of weeks and then I sliced it. So simple and I don't know why I haven't done it before. My brother just visited and brought me some home smoked ham and bacon, so I will enjoy comparing my bacon with his!

Mushrooming

Spring is sprung and we have had some lovely rain! This also means mushroom time! I went out yesterday afternoon and collected about 1kg and then this morning another 1/2 kg for breakfast! Will go again this afternoon, and maybe for a couple of days, but as it warms up, they will finish up. Some people are a little concerned about eating wild mushrooms and rightly so. However we have been eating wild mushrooms for many years - I never even liked mushrooms until my husband brought home a hatful one time after we were first married. I'm in Central Queensland and I know I can eat these mushrooms, but if you live anywhere else, PLEASE check with someone who knows before you eat any wild mushrooms. The main thing to look for is pink to brown gills - if they are white under neath, don't even think about it. There are two types of mushrooms that I know of that are brown under - one you can eat and one you can't. If they are brown to goldie coloured on the top, and usually a little pointy, DO NOT eat these ones. The edible ones tend to be almost flat and white on top. Sometimes they can have a little colouring on top, but not too much.

If your mushrooms look like these, they should be pretty right. Last year we had heaps and I made mushroom soup, mushroom sauce, froze some and just generally we ate mushrooms for a week! I will dry some this time, as I think that might be better than freezing. They go very soft and mushie when frozen, but are great for soups and stews. I'll put some of my mushroom recipes on the Recipe Page.
Goodluck! And remember, don't touch them unless they are pinkie brown underneath and not gold on top!

Paddock to Plate

Tomorrow we are taking some ducks to Biloela to be processed (is that the right word?). Because our ducks were such prolific breeders, we've got more ducklings than we could eat, so we will get them professionally killed so that we can sell some. This will be our first paddock to plate experience, so it's a bit exciting. We've already asked around and have orders, but hopefully we will get to keep some! Although....I'm not sure whether we will get full value as I keep the feet for stock and the livers for pate when we do them ourselves. Maybe we'll have to keep the next lot just for us!

We are still in the process of getting the free range pig business off the ground, as there is so much red tape to go through. It bugs me that we have to get all sorts of approvals to have pigs and yet we don't intend managing them and their grazing any different than if they were cattle. Unfortunately the powers that be treat free range pigs the same as intensive shedded pigs. Doesn't make a lot of sense, but why should that surprise me!

The other hold up for us is getting the work done that needs to be done - fences and yards for the pigs. I'm busy with my day job and can't help much. We're thinking of getting backpackers or wwoofers to help out so that may make life easier. Who wouldn't want to come here and be part of our farm enterprise? It should be a novelty for most people I think, to have fresh cows milk, eggs, our own meat from ducks, pigs, cattle and soon we will have goat meat! We have 4 young ones - 2 males and 2 females. We will eat the males and then breed with the females - just to have some meat for ourselves, not to sell.

Blog problems!!!!

I have been trying to comment on the previous comment and for some stupid reason, I can't even comment on my own blog site.....sometimes I hate technology!!! Anyway, I had some witty, intelligent comment about fruit and veggies, which doesn't sound witty and intelligent when you try and put it in a comment about 10 times! So....this post is just to say....that if a teenage boy who has very rarely eaten veggies and another teenager that always has, says that green pawpaw is nice as a veggie, than it must be! Don't knock it until you try it!

Pawpaw - vegetable or fruit? Or both?

I've just discovered pawpaw as a veggie! I've made an Asian style pawpaw salad before, which is really nice, however cooking it as a vegetable is delicious. I've only used really green pawpaws for both. As a cooked vegetable it's very similar to parsnip in taste. I've tried it roasted as well as fried. It's really nice fried in butter with garlic and onion. If you have a tree, give it a try, you will be pleasantly surprised.