Pork Chops

I gotta admit, i used to hate pork chops. They were my dad's favorite meal when i was a kid, but i just couldn't get into the way my mom cooked them. With raisins. I just wasn't into it. (sorry mom)

So, when i stopped into a local meat market, i was surprised to find myself leaving with a package of pork chops. I only recently started including a decent amount of meat in our diet, and am still not super familiar with how to purchase meat or how to cook it. Rack of lamb? Ribs? Roast? Eh?  Pork chops were familiar, so i grabbed them. I'm glad i did.

I still didn't really know what to do with the chops, though. I sure as heck didn't want to use raisins, but you need to eat something with pectin in it when eating pork to help our human bods digest the stuff. Remember that applesauce i put up earlier this Summer? I finally cracked a jar open, and it wasn't as bad as i worried it would be (i burned it when i cooked it down). I added some chopped jalapeno to the sauce and warmed it up for a perfect slightly spicy/slightly sweet side to our meal. And then i left it in the microwave until we were 90% done with dinner. Sigh.

I think i did pretty well: from confused in the meat market to cooking a well balanced meal of pork chops, mushroom gravy, little baked potatoes and a side of broccoli (and applesauce). I winged the chops, and they turned out great. First i sauteed the chops with some onions and nitrate free bacon, then i added some mushrooms and herbs and topped it all with some homemade chicken stock. No worries about dried out chops OR undercooked pork. I can't wait until we're growing our own hogs and i can spend even more time humming, hawing and experimenting with the meat we package up.

Have you ever found yourself feeling like a fish out of water at the grocery store or market? Did you try something new, or stick with the one thing you recognized?

Market Re-Opening *New Location *New Time

I hope to see my local followers at the new location of 

The Austin Urban Farmers Market this Saturday 11-3*

Tell your friends if you can't make it, or bring them along if you can. I'll have plenty of bars of soap, including Lavender*Chamomile, Lavender*Jasmine, Lemongrass*Turmeric and several more. ALL NEW: This week I'll be offering some soothing hand and body balm. A luxurious blend of whipped shea, coconut oil, and hemp seed butter to deeply moisturize the dryest of skin plus some rosemary essential oil to sooth aching muscles.

I think i'll bake up some mini loaves of my delicious onion and herb bread too - so come early and get the best of the goodies. As always I will be joined by Germaine of Munkebo Farms with her fresh, pastured duck eggs and meat, Robin of Austin Urban Farming with plenty of veggies and seasonal fare, Leroy of Cousin Leroy's BBQ sauce, and plenty of other local vendors with canned goods, fresh produce, crafts and more.



*Trying out a new, later time. Please let us know what you think about the change.

Farm to Table: Processing Ducks

*DISCLAIMER*DISCLAIMER*DISCLAIMER*

The following post contains images of ducks being humanely butchered. If you are sensitive to the killing of animals or have children around whom you don't want seeing images of dead animals - please do not read this post.

Okay - if you're still reading, i hope you will find this post informative. I found the experience to be very enlightening and it truly helped me to better understand the food chain and what really goes into the practice of preparing meat for the dinner table.

I met Germaine of Munkebo Farms at the Austin Urban Farmers Market where we both have booths on Saturday mornings (10 - 3). I've been training Pocket to herd sheep and learned that she has ducks that Pocket might practice on, so we scheduled a date. Instead of working the ducks, however, i simply introduced Pocket to obedience training around crazy animals (ducks, geese, dogs, ferel hogs, horses, you name it) and agreed to help Germaine process 4 ducks for her Thanksgiving supper. The whole ordeal took upwards of 3 hours and was not without some mess, cringing, and corgi intrigue.

Here's how we did it:
Each duck was placed upside down in a cone, held securely by quiet helpers and humanely slaughtered with a sharp razor blade to the artery and vein in the neck. Two passed quickly, two held out for almost 10 minutes with some thrashing and splattering of duck blood. Good thing i wore old pants and sneakers. Killing poultry in this fashion is one of the most humane methods: no unneccesary violence via head chopping, they're squeezed in the cones securely which makes them feel comfortable in their final moments, the blood can drain into buckets placed below and comes out fairly quickly helping to speed their transition into death.

I held the duck to the right and caught this shot while Milo helped Germaine with the second

Once dead the birds are dipped in scalding hot water and placed in a plucking machine. We had the water a bit too hot which melted some of the skin causing unsightly damage to the finished duck. The feathers were difficult to get out as well: the water was so hot that we had to take them out before all the feathers got completely wet. This was my least favorite part: smelly, wet feathers are just plain gross. I have a problem with wet things: tissues, paper towels, and feathers, apparently.

A large potato masher comes in handy

Heavy duck!

This plucking machine really freaked me out.

As you can see - this duck did not lose enough feathers in the machine

Once plucked we finished up the butchering process, removing the breathing tubes and innards. This was actually pretty fun and i did a good job, though the lungs were hard to find. No pictures of this, as my hands were rather nasty at this point. First you slice the skin around the base of the head, find the trachea and other main tube, seperate from spine and cut spine. Make an incision near the clavacle area and clip the base of the trach and other tube (sorry i'm forgetting my science learnin') and gently pull the head with those tubes out of the neck. Voila, now carefully slice off the oil glands, flip him over and carefully cut into the body cavity, removing all the goodies within. We saved the gizzard, liver and pancreas for the pot, discarding the voice box, testicles, lungs and crop.

Chilled and ready to be processed

Poultry feet make great stock - lots of gelatin!

Ready for Thanksgiving dinner

 I'll never look at pre-packaged poultry the same way. It's quite memorable to hold a living, warm duck in your hands, feel its death throws, and finally lower its processed carcass into a cooler ready to be eaten.

I wrote this post because i think it is important to remember where your food comes from: if you eat meat, it was once alive and had to die for your supper. There's blood involved, mess, and too often pain and fear. Remember that, respect that, and don't take that meat for granted: choose local if possible, humanely raised and butchered meat for your supper table. Just because you may choose not to think about where that meat comes from, or how it was treated when it was a living animal, doesn't make the frequent mis-management and disrespect of meat animals any less prevalent. Only consumers can change the market.
Make the choice.
Be responsible.
Feel good about the food you eat and where it comes from.

This post also found at Simple Lives Thursday

Handcrafted Soap - Now Available!

My first batch of hand crafted soap is cured and ready for purchase. $4.99 (plus shipping if you're not local) will get you 4 plus ounces of homemade soap. Ingredients include organic alfalfa and basil from my garden, colloidal oats for skin moisturizing, calendula oil for skin soothing, and lemongrass and rosemary essential oils for mind invigoration. The aroma is light and soothing and the texture exfoliating without being harsh. This first batch made 1 dozen bars plus samplers that have proven well received by all. My next recipe will be a shea butter soap with more luscious essential oils and other botanical goodies from my garden.

You can shop in person tomorrow from 10 -3 at the corner of Jones and Manchaca in south Austin.  I hope to see you at the Urban Farmers Market! Feel free to email me and place an order if you'd like to get in on my next batch of all natural soap.

I'd like to invite a vote - what scent would you prefer? I use no perfumes, only essential oils and organic botanicals.

• Lemongrass
• Lavender
• Cloves and rosemary
• Eucalyptus and tea tree

Bringing it To The Public!

I have an exciting announcement to all my local readers - my husband and I will have a small booth at a new urban farmer's market in south Austin this Saturday.  You can get a preview of some of the things we'll have available at our joint website, The Relic Jar. I'll have some of those lovely multiplying onions for sale as well as some chives for cooking or transplanting and some freshly picked herbs. Pocket the puppy will be in tow - so don't miss your chance to meet her, me, my husband and our creative wares.

I hope to see you there! Parking will be dicey, so please find a side street perpendicular to Manchaca.

10 am to 3 pm, 5109 Manchaca Road

More Raw Milk Projects

Another blogger i follow just posted this, a how to to make your own butter. I'm very excited to add this to my projects list.

So far i've made my own sour cream - 15 oz or so (which rocks), delicious cheeses from half a gallon of skimmed milk, another half gallon skimmed milk to drink and cook with, lots of whey to add to things for fermentation and prolonged shelf life (mayo, kim chee, soaked breakfast grains).

That's a lot of stuff for one gallon of milk. The milk costs 6.50$ a gallon plus a dollar to the milk host. So $7.50 goes a pretty long way if i use it all right.

Reading her post is inspiring - i bought some buttermilk the other day to add to the cream to make the sour cream. Turns out butter is made by simply shaking the cream: it will separate into butter, and buttermilk! Hot dog, i'm a dairy processing machine! It is so exciting to learn to make more and more staple things that i will no now longer need to buy in the store!

I just happened to have a little cream left over from the last batch of milk. A VERY little bit. But I'm giving it a go, and phew! Butter is a workout! Suppose it's only fitting for soemthing so decadent to require quite a bit of elbow (and wrist and hand) grease. Shake Shake Shake!

Alright - not enough cream per the size of this big jar, so i downsize into a smaller jar. Much better shakage. Cream is now 'whipped cream.'

Awesome, butter is  separating from 'buttermilk'.

Now i rinse and shake a few times, and voila! Butter! I also notice a nice dark yellow color to this butter, must more yellow than the store bought stuff. I'm skipping the creaming part as there is so little of it. I anticipate spreading some of this on warm piece of the cranberry nut bread I'll be baking this evening.

Thanks so much, Chiot's Run!

Have you experimented with making dairy products from scratch? What are your favorite recipes, and what are your favorite ways to use a gallon of milk?

The Co-Op is Live!

An Austin Homestead is ready to close up the circle of production. I have Kombucha, I don't have eggs yet, but will, and I have a desire to reach out to this great community and spread the love. You help me afford supplies and feed, you get good stuff, i get good stuff, the hens get good stuff, we all win!  Please invite any friends you know would be interested in buying locally and consuming high quality, fresh goodies.

You can request membership to my new Co-Op here, as well as via a link on the left side of this blog.

Bear with me while I work through the learning process and baby steps of a new entrepreneurial venture, but i think this will be a great step for my little urban homestead and a great way to give something back to my loyal friends.

Current availability : Plain Kombucha Tea 16 oz for $3, Flavored (with cinnamon and cloves, cranberries, or other requests) Kombucha 16 oz for $3, Bring your own jar and knock off a dollar.  Also, very soon Scobies to brew your own KT will be available on special request.

Co-Op members will be given a link to a spreadsheet with available items listed. You will simply enter the number of items you desire and subject to availability will be able to pick up said items most weekends (specific pick up/delivery specifics will be specified once i get a better sense of who and how many co-op members i rustle up)

Can't wait to hear from you!
Miranda

COMING SOON: New Mini Co-op to Purchase Goods from the Austin Homestead

Hi folks!
I'm happy to announce that my entrepreneurial spirit is in full swing. As loyal readers, you know that i am the happy mother of 4 beautiful hens, and an experimenter and succeeder in the brewing of Kombucha Tea (KT). Since I live alone with my husband and animals - we simply have more KT and eggs (in theory, they're not quite laying YET) than we can consume in a hasty fashion. I don't, however, make enough of any of these consumables to warrant a full scale advertising corporate identity or even farm stand, nor guarantee availability at all times.

That being said: I would love to form a small scale, local co-op to partake in purchasing and consuming of my wares - for your benefit and for mine. You will help me pay for the things that make my life more fulfilling and healthy, and bring something healthful into your own home while buying as "local" as it gets.

Wares I will have available for purchase will vary with the season, but will rotate around these assorted items: Kombucha Tea, flavored and unflavored, bottled by me or bottled into your bottle at a discount (you can bring bottles as a deposit towards next time, or have me fill it on sight), Yard Fresh Eggs, by the dozen, half dozen, or even by the egg if you don't mind skipping the fancy egg carton, freshly made pasta and pesto, seasonal produce, maybe even cheese! I also crochet beverage cozies that are great for personal use or as gifts, among other silly and useful crafty things.

I will create a google document that you can simply open up online and place your order. The spreadsheet will tally your totals and orders will be filled upon availability. I will do my best to keep the spreadsheet current by week, and if something is unavailable when you want it, you will be sure to get first dibs the following week.   This document will also be an easy way to 'tell your friends' and they can request participation in the co-op as well.  As we go along I'll have a better idea of exactly how much KT i can really bottle in a week - and luckily it keeps in the fridge so i can bottle as it comes and save it up for the weekend.  I'm still working out the kinks - but I will either set up a set time to meet co-op members at an established locale, or set up  'open hours' Saturday afternoons to coincide with the farmers market schedules.

I am open to comment and suggestion, so please let me know your interests, needs, and preferences, and feel free to give me any ideas about facilitating local goodnesses.

Would this be something you'd be interested in? Do you have friends that are looking for a local source for KT or even scobies to purchase for their own homebrew? Would you buy local, yard eggs for about $3 a dozen? Let me know!