yes i have done in the past, haven't for about 6 months

i did a charcuterie course and i have made, bacon,prosciutto, pancetta, salami,chorizo, chevapi, about 12 different sausages, leg ham......i would really like to make my own traditional pork pie....i am just starting to experiment with them

one thing i really do like making and keeping in winters is dumplings out of won tons or gow gee

i make a mix with my pork mince and add garlic,ginger,shallots,water chestnut and peanut oil and wrap them, i tend to make a shit load and freeze them in a lunch box in layers with greaseproof paper between the layers so they don't stick, we find them really versatile, as we can use them in chicken or any stock soup as dumplings, or you can shallow fry them and have them with rice,or fried rice and chilli sauce, or make pot stickers out of them, where you steams them then fry them until their bums brown, so they can be entree if your having visitors.....so many ways to enjoy them...but they are fiddly fuckers to make so i go through the pain and do heaps when i make the effort, do a full kilo or 2 of mince and you can make between 60-100.......

means been born.....or farrowed in the case of a pig....when the sow delivers she is farrowing......

well it's open to interpretation isn't it????? cirus do tend to like the acid from the urea in your wee...but some people might say the run of is bad....to me it's pretty natural and organic,

our poo is a very different story......;)

Let me know when you make bacon again, and I will buy the shit out of some.

Urea actually has a pH of between 7.5 and 9.5. It's a base, not an acid.

yeah i know....don't know how it works but if you continually add it you end up with acidic soil, perhaps it releases some thing in other elements??? don't really know

just buy some freerange pork and make your own....it's pretty easy....there are some great books and receipies out there....charcuterie by michael rulhman and brian polcyn is a good one.......and we also use Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's books.....

you can make the bacon in a freezer zip bag in about 7-10 days......the thing here is it is real bacon so its very strong in taste compared to the heavily sodium nitrate/nitrite soaken commercial bacon.......once you have made the bacon you can drench the bacon and rince it several times in fresh water to reduce how salty it is......and it ends up a brown colour not the purple sodium nitrate colour......but it's very tasty indeed....

Sign me up!!

they are yummy....;)

going to bring a steer in from the paddock and start finishing him off on grass and grain for the next 40-45 days and put him in my freezer......ready for spring/summer BBQ's....ye har partner...!!!!! some lowline aberdeen angus

Why grain?

rapid weight gain....best beef is finished on grass, so i hold a small acre paddock back and let it get plush with feed, then i put the steer in there so he has plenty of grass and then i feed him morning and night with grain meal probably a domestic bucket morning and night along with the paddock of grass......they have such a contented look on their face when they have been in there a day or two...sitting there chewing their cud......and they bulk up big and fast....least i can do is for them to end their life living it up big and having all they want and it ends up on the plate anyhow...........it's very cost effective, i would get on average 200 kilos of premium meat out of a carcass AFTER the offal,head and bones are disposed......

so just work it out based on mince or sausage rate of $10 a kilo and it's obviously viable even if i do spend about $200 on grain meal to finish them...

so just planted my potatoes during the week...i am a bit late but at least they are in..........

and today we are off to the Abattoir with a bunch of suckling, weaner & grower piglets...............

Megabump :cool:

batfink you'd be proud of me mate. We now get Aus-local-grown produce.

The mrs & I were finding that we weren't making ourselves eat enough fruit&veggies (well, mostly veggies, we were good with fruit) and found a heap of our meals were just consisting of meat & sauce, and bugger all veggies.

So we found the details of a guy who delivers produce to your doorstep, he drives around in a truck full of produce that he gets from the local markets each week. So we signed up for a $30 weekly "mystery box" - basically he gives us a variety of fruit&veggies worth $30 each week. We're not too fussy, the only thing we don't eat is rockmelon, so he just picks the better looking produce for us and gives us whatever. He is either the same price as woolies and stuff, or a little bit dearer. But we're happy to support him, he's been running the truck for 30 years, just delivering to the local area. We've found that we're picking/cooking meals that are suited to the veggies we have, as we don't want to waste them. And hence we're eating more veggies each week, and feeling better about ourselves.

I think he gets his veggies from local markets each week, so we're fully local-grown produce now!

We could arguably have forced ourselves to buy the same veggies he gives us most weeks ourselves, but getting it delivered by a nice local guy makes it a bit more fun & feel-good about it all.

Edited by pv4: 16/9/2013 09:25:44 AM

=d>

=d> =d> =d> =d> awesome..!!! and to be supporting a local guy is so good,when i was a kid that was very common for veggie , soft drink,ice cream trucks etc etc to drive down your street and supply goods,

where ever possible we try not to support woolies or coles, and we will spend a little more to support local growers.... what we cant get from our garden we buy from a rural grower outlet about 5 kilometres up the road......he sources from all the local market gardens, and you are right about what you get you mold the meals around, we do that a lot with what is available out of the garden....

restaurants call it seasonal, and we as consumers are so used to having fruit and veggies available year round, and never consider the transportation, refrigeration, gases and chemicals required to keep and deliver these commodities..

I had a fire last night and burned wood. How do I offset those carbon emissions?

easy throw yourself on it.....:-"

actually in winter that is my primary source of heating, both my woodheaters are with the epa emissions regulations and only smoke as i start them......have not done any research to evaluate if burning coal is less damaging, however it is a lot cheaper to burn timber to heat my house

Fuckn firebug... :-" :-" :-" ;) ;) ;)

At least no cops turned up this time :lol:

lol....here i am clearing my block the weekend before the western sydney fires....this fire is 30 foot high minimum...lol

fire

Edited by batfink: 16/9/2013 05:16:32 PM

must be getting close to feeding time......




pig olympics

Edited by batfink: 17/9/2013 10:23:44 AM

Finally finished my retaining wall (what an effort that was!), and yesterday was able to start my vege garden!! Features pretty much everything - thyme, basil, few forms of lettuce, hot chillis, tomatoes, etc etc.

Next step out the back is some more earth-moving, build the deck, then get the lawn to grow (haven't been worried about that yet as we've been digging the ground up a fair bit).



Edited by pv4: 15/1/2014 07:55:18 AM

nice work......how long is that end panel to the right of the pic.....beans and snow peas would go ok there

just goes to show you....all that garlic i grew is half way used....my missus has gone ape shit using it.......i grew 160 bulbs......

we are now just starting our pissata and tomato sauce......

You're talking about the length of the retaining wall, yeah? If yes, I used 200x100x2.4m treated pine sleepers & 125x65 I-Beam posts (sourced from work fyeah!). Each post of that wall with the vege patch is 2m spaced (so vege patch is 6m long), and it's roughyl 800-900mm above the ground. The wall heading to the right of the pic is around 1.4-1.5m above ground, and is roughly 9m long. The ground on the right side of the pic is where my eventual 75sqmetre deck will be going (going to start that very soon) - around 300mm off the ground.

Oh yeah, I've got beans already, forgot that. Love me some snow peas so will surely look into them too.



Edited by pv4: 15/1/2014 02:18:30 PM

cool......you could also grow a cucumber and let it fall over the edge onto some chicken wire, it will hold onto the chicken wire.

also nice working height you have there....;)

Buy one of those commercial sized olive oils from the supermarket and a slab of flip-top Grolch for the bottles. Go to town on the garlic oil (and chili if you're growing it).

Fuckin' delicious.

the missus has me working full time helping preserves and bottling stuff, we do pickled onion,chillies,plum jam,marmalade with jamiesons whiskey, rhubarb and gin, artichokes , pissata, tomato sauce, preserved lemons,heaps of other shit as well.....

really rewarding when you can put stuff on the table of your own with no chemicals, preservatives or shit in the feed production of our animals.....and to think i am only 50 mins from the CBD of sydney