LDay 57 – 60 of 365 blogs
ife is what happens when you try to plan. Obviously, I got behind on my daily blog. So let me end February with a compilation of day 57-60. We knew when last week began that it was going to be a difficult week. Our week involved processing one pig starting on Tuesday and because of unforeseen circumstances, had to process the other one on Friday night. We stayed up half the night on Saturday night cutting up and packaging the second pig. Weather was turning warm on Sunday and it had to be done then. I made 18 quarts of pork broth (Yummy), 5 pints of lard, 6 slabs of bacon (which is in the refrigerator being turned twice a day for 7 days.), and two different types of sausage ground and packaged for a total of 32 packages. It feels really good to be on this end of it and we had some help with the dispatching and skinning.
We have a new cow we are caring for, for someone else and Missy is with Ferdinand the Bull, a little Dexter Bull. More on that later. We got trim up in the window sills and lining in the living room and attic guest room. We had our friend Katie stop and chat for a while which was a real blessing. We often stopped and watched a show we are binge watching to relax and take care of ourselves. I have missed writing each day but the “behinder” I got the more impossible it felt to catch up. So now I am got up.
Among the extra items mentioned above, we still did our normal things. Chores, meeting with the neighbor each day to keep her company, meals, our addiction recovery groups and we spoke on Sunday in another congregation.
Nutritional Education
The first sausage we made was from recipe from Allrecipes but we of course changed it a little. This is the recipe with the changes we made. Sweet Italian Sausage (Mild)We made 12 pounds of it so quadrupled this recipe.3 pounds of ground pork with 20% of it being fat3 tablespoons of red wine vinegar1 tablespoon salt1 tables spoon cracked alck pepper1 tablespoon garlic powder1 tablespoon onion powder1 tablespoon dried basil2 teaspoons paprika¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes¾ teaspoon ground fennel seed½ teaspoon coconut sugar1/8 teaspoon dried oregano1/8 teaspoon dried thyme. What we had never done before and learned from another YouTube demonstration is to add all the dry ingredients to the meat prior to grinding. We cut all the meet into golf ball size and added the vinegar first and stired well, then added the dry ingredients and then ground. It made such a great difference. We always fry up a small piece to make sure we like it prior to grinding and packaging. It was so good.
