This is the last recipe featuring potatoes for the year – for our garden, at least, the season is over, and all the potatoes dug and eaten. The provisions have shifted to fresher, lighter, greener offerings – green beans, tomatoes, summer squash – and so the recipe testing here must vary accordingly. While we have…
Tag: Local Food
POTAGE AUX QUENELLES: Soup With Dumplings
This recipe caught my eye as I was translating the soups section, because it sounded so unusual. Last week I made a large pot of rich beef broth, and had broth and marrow from the bones on hand – a perfect opportunity to try it out. Of course I wasn’t sure at all what it…
Bacon
The bacon is finally finished curing and air-drying. It turned out quite good this time, and we got almost 20lbs of bacon from one pig, after curing. This means it was probably originally 25 or so pounds fresh. When bacon is cured traditionally, salt and a small amount of sugar, spices and seasonings are rubbed…
Chameleon Butter
Almost as soon as Explorer came back to us from the farm where he was breeding more cows, the grass was ready to graze for the first time. Several cold fronts had showered us with rain, and the warm weather that came afterwards made the grass wake up, shake itself, and start to grow. We…
POMMES DE TERRE A LA MAITRE D’HOTEL
In the garden, the potato plants have keeled over and turned brown, a sign that they are not going to grow much larger, and are ready to dig. They are not as large as they have been in other years, perhaps because it has been very dry and I haven’t irrigated them. But they taste,…
Chicharrones and Pork Pie
The Chicharrones (or, as they are called here in the South, Pork Rinds) are just the pork skin sliced and baked for awhile. In general, we scald and scrape our pigs, not only because cured hams must have the skin-on, but also so we can save the skin for these delightful, crunchy…
Sausage
Sausage seasonings being mixed – we only use pure organic herbs and spices and sea salt. Sausage being mixed The results Black Sausage Ingredients Liverwurst getting ready to be made There has been some confusion about the pig classes we are offering. I think in being overly flexible about what…
Pâté Progression
I thought it would be interesting to show what goes into the various tasty things we made over the weekend. Naturally, I am starting with the most photogenic end – the result. Most Americans, I think, would be a bit squeamish when it comes to looking at a picture of raw liver. They are…
First Pig Harvest
Getting started…. All of these fresh organs are used to make delicious traditional foods…. We harvested the first of the spring piggies over the weekend. Everything went so well, and we were careful not to pack too much into one day this time. The scald water was the perfect temperature, and scalding…
SOUPE A L’OIGNON: Onion Soup
The onions are bulbing beautifully. This year we were careful not to water them, and they are keeping very well. They are very strong – I’ve never shed so many tears while slicing onions before. Through gardening, I have not only been impressed by how much flavor home-grown vegetables have, but also the remarkable lack…
In the Garden: Between Seasons
I loved this quote from Ben Hewitt that he posted recently: “Things will get done, and that which doesn’t get done will get done later or ultimately be deemed unnecessary in the first place, and we’ll think to ourselves isn’t it lucky we didn’t do it back when we thought it had to…
Toadstools And Fairy Rings 