Ham and Beans

Eating local and stretching the bounty seems to go hand in hand. When you the farm workers are part of your family and the land that feeds your hog feels like home, there's a natural call for head to tail eating as well as turning "leftovers" into something special. Really, there's little choice when a family of two adults and two young boys are faced with an enormous ham.

The story of this ham is the story of our past year. It was one of two in our basement chest freezer before the move. The 2009 ham went to church for the Parry Lecture Luncheon. The 2010 addition didn't fit into our new apartment freezer. It went into the refrigerator to thaw while the matching turkey brined in the bathtub. Don't worry, it was in a cooler with ice.

The ham was cooked, glazed and served. We ate about a quarter of it. About a quarter was bone. The rest went in the freezer or was sliced for sandwiches. Deborah ate more for a couple weeks. My fondness for ham expires at one meal, usually, but the CSA hams might make a meal for me twice in a month.

So, today I took the ham bones, some soaked beans, chicken stock, and spices, roasted/braised it all in an oven for 8 hours, turning the bones every 2 hours and added an unsmoked ham hock about 4 hours in.


Early in cooking


Done


After removing bones


The bones


Tristan's plate

I didn't intend to write about this. But Ray Larkin, a MI brewing buddy, asked about it on FB when I said it was in the oven. Not having crock pots or an arsenal of covered bakeware that is in storage, I did what I could with what I had. And it turned out great. The bones added something they don't in a steamy environment. The broth reduced to a geletanous binding, even bordering on "crusty" out of the oven.

A nice reuse of a pig, even for someone who doesn't care for ham.

posted from Bloggeroid

It's All About the Skin!

Being part of an "Old MacDonald" CSA means getting chickens as go rarely find them in a market. Taken out of their packaging (ours sent them out for packing) reveals a bird, not a characature of one. First to notice is the neck, intact with the slit that drained the literal lifeblood from this animal. There's also a thick flap of neck skin reminiscent of a Thanksgiving Turkey. And weighing in at 6.5 pounds, dressed, it's got a lot in common with a turkey.



So I get this bird out of its wrapping, having thawed it in the fridge for a couple days. This time I removed the neck and tossed it into my frozen stock bag. I took the innards, heart, gizzard, lungs, and placed them in the pan with the bird. Now the bird gets seasoned. A liberal application of salt, pepper and garlic (powder, in this case) will sit.



After an hour, it enters a 275F oven for five hours. Here it sweats a beautifully thick gravy of chicken-ness. The skin turns magical. And the bird is glorified by anyone with a nose.



I'll often rest the bird breast side down on a bed of evenly thick, sliced potatoes. The chicken spa turns each potato into a tiny boneless chicken bite. Turning the breast down seems to keep the fragile white meat moist while letting the dark, moist meat drain a bit.

Dismantling this artpiece from the farm is an accident. Stub your toe while carrying it to the table and you'll spend no effort in shredding. Just make sure to be greedy of that skin. It doesn't get any favors in the chill chest.

Jeff has told audiences that the greatest compliment paid to his efforts came from an elderly person. "That is what chicken used to taste like."

And my kids know no difference.

posted from Bloggeroid

Low and Slow

It's been months now since my Mother-in-Law asked what I meant by "low & slow" when roasting a whole chicken. In that case, I usually use a 275F oven for 4 or 5 hours after an hour or two with a salt and pepper rub. More on that later this week, I hope.

I often forget what happens when I am not prepared to use our meat. Above you see some short ribs and mashed potatoes. I was all set to cook them and forgot until 3:30 when we try to eat between 5 and 6. So, while it looks great with the bbq reduction "gravy" and tasted equally stellar, the resulting shoe leather became eligible for a save in the oven until 9 or 10. We ended up picking up a pizza.

Lesson learned. Don't press your luck when a clock and pastured meat are on the line.

What's funny is that Deborah demanded that I take that picture. I already knew how it was going to be but it did look pretty.

posted from Bloggeroid

Planting

We did this on Thursday. Its been a busy few days.

I started by scrubbing out a couple clay pots I kept from the house. As water evaporates through the clay, salts and micro organisms can contaminate them. So a good scrubbing helps out. I did this while the boys were sleeping. While I had opportunity, I planted both pots up to the top level. Then when the boys eke up, I could help them plant the top, easy level of these multipots.



When it came time, though, neither Duncan or Tristan was willing to touch the plants.

In the strawberry (taller) jar, I alternated strawberries, green peppers and cherry tomatoes. Strawberries are on the top. At the end of tomato season, I'll remove the annuals and root some strawberry runners in their place. The herb (smaller) pot has peppers, cherry tomatoes and some chives that survives the move.

I guess I'm also my own farmer, huh?

Next Steps

So far, I've been trying to document our consumption. Today, I'm turning an important corner in two ways. First, and most important in the long term, is that we are now houseless. The relocation company "bought" our house yesterday and will settle up by Saturday. This means that we get to move forward with buying a house. So, soon, I'll be able to turn my focus on finding some farmers in Bartholomew County to fill our provisions.

The other is less world-changing and more immediate. Waiting for my attention at our storage shed were two clay multipots. The smaller is embossed as herbs. The larger is a traditional strawberry jar. This morning, I took the boys grocery shopping and we picked up some potting mix and plants, strawberries, tomatoes, and bell peppers. Tomorrow, we'll plant our containers out on the patio. With any luck, we'll have some fruits before they are relocated to sunny Columbus.

The next stage after our container folly is establishing new pwrrenial beds at a new house. To that end, I share a photo of one spear of asparagus I got from our Fort Wayne Community Garden plot the week before we moved.

Sometimes the "better choices" are the easier ones.

Had we not prepaid for our hotel stay over the weekend, I'd have cancelled our trip. We had a nice savings for a down payment just three weeks ago. But paint, carpet, HVAC repair and an obnoxious lender (in the family) made it tight. We had $7 to use toward gas and food until Wednesday when we returned to the apartment.

So when contemplating dinner in the last five miles, I had to keep it in the kitchen. No calling out for Chinese or pizza. Couldn't swing through the uber-convenient McD's or White Castle. Don't even think about finding a full service dining experience. Mac & cheese from the blue box. That was my thought as I pulled into the parking spot we left Thursday night.

But that didn't last up the stairs. Once the boys were corralled in the apartment I started cooking up sausage patties and pancakes. With the standard BH&G plaid binder packed, I found a recipe online. AND it used butter, not oil which we depleted in last week's fried chicken adventure. I substituted brown sugar for white since all the white stuff we have here is in packets. I forgot to add an egg. But I added cinnamon to the batter and sprinkles while they cooked and again at serving. Maybe thats why Deborah said they were the best ever.

I thought I'd say that a benefit of knowing my farmer is flexibility. We stopped getting sausage from our CSA share a few years ago, in favor of bacon, chops and whole pieces (shoulder, belly). So when I forgot to pick up half of my chickens last year, I managed to trade some of them for other meat, including this particular package of sausage. I guess I managed to talk about that. Imagine making a special order with your grocer and then trading it for stuff in stock months later.

I AM My Brewer

It was a beer weekend in Fort Wayne. That is a generally true statement for most weeks of GermanFest. For me, Headwaters Park was only a blip on the GPS.
On Friday I taught about 20 people how to make beer at the Indiana State Master Gardener Conference. Some topic, huh? Saturday, I judged beer at Fort Wayne's Botanical Conservatory. Sunday involved a beer club meeting and was supposed to finish with a beer festival at the Conservatory. Aside from the festival, it all happened.
So going back to all this knowing where our food comes from, I do, in fact brew most of the beer I drink (which isn't a lot). And probably 20% of other beers I drink are made by people I know. I take malted barley, which tastes as sweet as Honey Nut Cheerios, and make sweet sort for yeast to turn into delicious beer. I haven't had much luck growing my own malt, but I have grown hops. Boy, have I grown hops.
Sometimes I even get people together to make beer and we enjoy it together. Its a good thing. The last effort, Plymouth's Lenten Brew has beer a great beer. It even came in fourth in that competition on Saturday.
I like making my own beer.

Pizza!!!

Have I mentioned Hawkins Family Farm? Of course, we were regulars before it was "cool" but also before it became the "Pizza Farm."

This weekend is about beer for me. My plan was that I'd come back to do a presentation on brewing beer and beer appreciation for the Indiana State Master Gardener Conference, judge some beer on Saturday and hopefully win a prize on Sunday. All that's still happening, except where I envisioned camping at Johnny Appleseed Park by myself has turned into a weekend at The Hilton in downtown Fort Wayne. So the whole family is on the road right now and its getting to us all.

But... it means we were free for pizza tonight. We made the familiar trek out to the farm and enjoyed the sporadic weather, watching chickens and truly artisan pizza.

This is Indiana pizza. Indiana flour, Indiana sauce, Indiana cheese and Indiana everything. Any meat portion was raised within a 2 minute walk of where we were eating it. It was made by volunteers or family members (draftees). It's a beautiful thing. It really is.

I'm posting this from my phone, so I hope the photos come through fine. Let me know.

Today's Nuggets; Tomorrow's Bouillon?

I apologize for the rant I'm about to go into. At this point, I can't decide which rant is about to begin. I'm just sort of free versing this.


Today I made Chicken Nuggets for the boys' lunch. I won't continue the healthy, happy, Hawkins chicken bit. You know...

So that's what I made. Here's why I made it.


I learned how to make fried chicken from Alton Brown's Good Eats show on the topic. It comes out great, every time. It's splendid. But over the last three years, I've become disenchanted with that show. When The Mad Fermentationist eulogized the show a couple weeks ago, I had my words.  I had depended on legitimate science and research-based fact from the show.  When the instructions for making beer were so overtly unresearched and wrong, it made me question the other "science" in the show.  It was no longer reliable.  It's not that I blame him for dumbing down beer making or making it accessible.  I'm ok with that.  But when things are so obviously wrong, it brings the whole enterprise into question.


So I have made fried chicken a couple times in the last month and those thoughts have come to mind.  Good Eats is/has come to a close and I'm not morning a loss.  I find that odd, especially since I keep my kosher salt in a cheese dish and have a cordless water kettle my wife got me because "He" had one.


But then there's this other part.  Unless you live in a cave or a mansion in Pakistan, you have seen the chicken sludge Jamie Oliver has made popular.  It's the stuff that chicken nuggets are made of.  It's pink, it's gooey, and it's reality.  Kids will eat it even after they see it in the primal form.  Not really a surprise.  Sure, soylent green isn't far behind.  Are we actually worried? I don't think so. Instead, we're sucking this stuff down with reincarnations of American Idol, The Apprentice, and Top Chef, equivalent forms of entertainment. Which is worse?  Your call.  We let our kids eat some of the junk. It's easy and satisfies some basic nutritional needs. At least we choose to think they do. But more importantly, they eat it.  (As I stare at plates with chicken and green beans remaining on the table after lunch.


So, we're bad, but we're trying to do better.  But to tie this back in, I'm hoping that what I talk about here in my journal (I wouldn't glorify it by calling it a blog) is real, undisguised truth as far as I am capable of revealing it.  


So Chicken Nuggets for lunch was a result of all that AND a taste test conducted by DadLabs.  So these are my chicken nuggets.  Made from Pastured, Happy Chickens.  They were very good.

Slice a Chicken Breast (which I removed from a whole chicken)

Turn that into Nuggets.

Add some herbs and spices.

Mix with some buttermilk and let it sit in the fridge overnight.

(and then I forgot to take some pictures...)

Strain out the chicken a couple hours before you want to cook it.  Dredge it in flour and set aside to let the crust develop. I've been using whole wheat flour because our AP is in storage.  I'd use a wire rack over a baking sheet, except that's packed too. 

Heat some oil in  a pan that will rise about halfway up your chicken bits when frying.  Get the temp up to about 350F, when sprinkling in some flour will cause bubbling.  Then add chicken so that they don't touch.  I did mine in two batches.

When it's browned sufficiently, turn the pieces.  With nuggets, this isn't long.  With whole pieces, this could be a good, long time.  Strain out the finished pieces and drain on paper towels, newsprint, butcher paper, paper sack, shards of glass...  (still with me?)

And then it looks like this (when you bake up some french fries to go with them... (But you've already seen this)

And that's my rant.

Novum Ovum

We have settled on our Egg Mistress for our time here in Greenwood. Deborah Hider sells eggs at the Greenwood Farmers Market on Saturdays. This is what Duncan left of three and a half boiled eggs. If these were grocery eggs, he would have eaten the white of one and turned his head at the rest. Deborah wants me to cook extras next time. I don't think there is definition of "extra" when it comes to Duncan and his "white eggs".

Cheating Pork Chops

I've said a lot about the Hawkins Family Farm in the scant week I've been documenting our food. One part of that puzzle is that even if you know who grows or raises your food and how they do it, there's usually domineering else involved. Jeff's had interns and his own kids chip in in addition to his clergy migrant workers. We've met a good part of this workforce. But there's also the people who process our meat.
Above, you see my proprietary pork chops. I use cheap stuffing and canned gravy under the pork chops to integrate the drippings. And there's a lot of drippings. These are rich, fatty, 1 inch thick chops from a Tamworth hog. Because they're so thick, they're in the oven at 225F for four or more hours. I'll keep them covered until the last 30 minutes or so, when I'll also bump the heat up to color the chops a bit.
Why are the chops so thick? Well, in our first year with the CSA share, we got a smoker for cooking the turkey. Of course we tested it and those tests were done with pork chops. The 1/2" chops were great, but they cooked too fast. So a couple years ago I asked them to cut the 1" thick. This makes for fewer chops and they're not standard bbq fare. But cooked nice and slow, they stay moist, tender and flavorful.
We can get this custom service because our hog is butchered at a custom meat locker. Each year I have talked to W & W Locker about any changes I want from last year. They keep the shoulder whole for me as well as keeping some of they belly out of becoming bacon. Braised pork belly can be quite a treat. But we can meet our butchers everytime we we're out there. Usually, they're working on someone's order right at the window. I was even able to get some fat from them to integrate into some rabbit sausage I made last year.
Its good to know who's touching your meat... you know what I mean.

Rice. Rice. Baby.

I started choosing Riceland Foods Medium Grain Brown Rice when I found out that it was the secret ingredient to getting the tender popping texture that PF Chang's mezmerizes me with. Finding out that it's a rice co-op is nice. I am sure that some of the 9000 members in the central southern US are relatives.  Since we're not in a climate that produces rice, I think choosing to buy from a co-op is better.

Or maybe I'm fooling myself.

Tonight's rice will be a base for stir fry. I made sure to bring "The Flaming Wok of Doom" to the apartment but finally got some rice. The stir fry will start with some Hawkins Family Farms beef. I think I have a round steak ready to serve as the featured meat. If not, there is a sirloin thawed.

Milk

Mamma's Pride was a satirical brand ad in the 1990's computer game You Don't Know Jack. Jellyvision was the company. See if you can find some of their spots. I don't want to ruin the surprise.

We go through milk. Plain and simple, once Deborah's commute goes down to a couple miles we will probably buy as much gas in a month as milk. Well, probably more. But you get the point.

We buy two gallons at a time two times a week, frequently with a fifth to hold the ship together. With milk prices climbing, we certainly hold our food budget in check by buying cheap milk. I'd love to be able to tell you that we can afford the costs (transportation and processing being necessary inclusions) of buying pastured, real, cream top, unpasturized milk. We don't. At the current price and the newness of the dairies I know about, I am not going to put those kinds of stakes on the table. Someday, sure. Just not until we've gotten through childhood or I find a dairy I can trust more than the big brands. Don't get me wrong, those brands don't carry much of my trust.

So let's meet the Kroger Dairy system. Kroger uses their milk as a loss leader. They sell it for way less than the distributed brands and it has our eye. When we can move to paying a dollar more per gallon, we'll likely move to Prairie Farm, a Midwest Co-Op. But for now its Kroger. Kroger operates 15 dairies and 3 ice cream plants across the country. One dairy is in Indianapolis, Crossroad Farms Dairy.

Crossroad Farms is run by InterAmerican and they process milk, orange juice, icecream and all sorts of food products. To me, this means they buy commodity milk. It will take more research to get more information on it.

At least I've come clean about our milk. I do hope to find a dairy we can visit to buy our dairy products soon. Maybe we could even find a place where I could "steal a few gallons" in exchange for accidentally dropping a few dollars in a by let or maybe a case of beer every once in a while...

One can hope...