Dark Days Pork Belly with Chestnuts

If you are a fan of food media you couldn't have missed the adoration that has been heaped upon pork belly in the last few years.  So when I made bacon this fall, with the half hog I purchased from Bare Knuckle Farms, I saved the trim pieces from my whole pork belly to cook on their own.  I had planned on trying David Chang's Pork Belly but it and most of the other recipes for pork belly rely on sugar and often soy sauce for flavor and I am avoiding both for January.  A little more searching brought me to this recipe for Braised Pork Belly.  I loved the sound of the fennel and allspice rub and the fact that it didn't call for any sugar.  I replaced the white wine with Black Star Farms verjus since I'm also avoiding all alcohol and adjusted the spices for the braising liquid somewhat.  After the braising was done I knew some sweetness was needed so I dug out some locally grown boiled chestnuts.  I sliced up the braised meat and broiled it just a little with the chestnuts.  They were wonderful together- sweet, rich, and spicy!   For something green to go with this meal I stir fried pac choi  from my winter 9 Bean Rows' CSA share with local garlic, organic fresh ginger, Eden Foods toasted sesame oil and a few black sesame seeds.  A great meal but I still feel like pork belly is best served as bacon.  Nothing beats bacon!

Visit Not Dabbling In Normal on Sundays for the round up of Dark Days meals. You can also visit our coordinator at Unearthing this Life to see some of our Midwest group entres.  

Dark Days Sausage and Greens Soup

We were given an extra challenge for this week and it was to make a soup or one-pot meal.  This was timed well to coincide with the snow and drop in temperature.  I made a batch of my Sausage and Greens Soup.  This batch is made with leeks from The Saturday Farmers Market at the Village, kale and turnip greens from 9 Bean Rows homemade Hubbell Farm chicken broth and my homemade apple/anise pork sausage, made with pork raised on Bare Knuckle Farm.

Visit Not Dabbling In Normal on Sundays for the round up of Dark Days meals. You can also visit our coordinator at Unearthing this Life to see some of our Midwest group entres.  

Dark Days Roasted Pumpkin Hash with Chorizo and more

More snow today.  From the signs in the coop, I think the weather was bad enough that even the ducks slept inside and it has to be pretty bad out for them to bother going in.  Weirdly one of our barred rocks is molting.  Talk about bad timing, we're in the middle of a cold snap!  She looks awful with all the new feathers sprouting out of her neck, blech.

Unintentionally, I managed to have all of my three meals today SOLE and completely Whole 30 compliant as well.  For breakfast I had a kale and baby lettuce salad.  For the dressing I made a creamy salad dressing with egg yolks from my chickens, organic flax seed and olive oils, a little organic lemon, mustard and Black Star Farms verjus.  I need to get some anchovies for my creamy dressings, they would have put it all over the top!  The kale and lettuce came from my 9 Bean Rows winter share that started last week.  I'm SO looking forward to their vegetables!

For lunch, I had a hash made with roasted cubed pumpkin (leftover from this soup), onions, sage (dried from my garden) and  some of my homemade chorizo sausage.  I took a picture of the hash before I chopped up the sausage and added it to the pumpkin but I attest that it was delicious though less attractive served that way.  Finally, dinner was beef and root vegetable soup.  I used some thin cut short ribs from Gallagher's Centennial Farm with a slew of root vegetables from 9 Bean Rows and vendors of The Village's Saturday Market.  The soup was very similar to the goat borscht I made before but with beef and without cabbage.  I flavored it with dried rosemary and winter savory from my garden, a  picture of the ingredients i used this time follows.

Dark Days Pumpkin Hash with Chorizo
Preheat your oven to 450 degrees F.  Cube pumpkin or winter squash into ~3/4" cubes and toss with a diced half an onion, olive oil, crumbled dried sage, salt and pepper.  Roast for ~20 minutes stirring occasionally, until golden brown.  While the pumpkin is roasting pan fry some chorizo sausage.  *Now that I'm thinking about it, I could have just added the sausage into the oven and saved myself a pan to wash.  When the pumpkin and sausage are fully cooked, slice the sausage and toss the two together.  Enjoy!

Visit Not Dabbling In Normal on Sundays for the round up of Dark Days meals. You can also visit our coordinator at Unearthing this Life to see some of our Midwest group entres.  

The ingredients for my Dark Days Beef and Root Soup, the process was similar to this goat borscht

Going Whole Hog 2011

Going whole hog figuratively but half hog literally, this year I purchased a half pig from Bare Knuckle Farm and had it broken up into primal cuts to further process myself.  I cured and smoked bacon and a whole ham and with the help of friends made a bunch of fresh sausages to stash in the freezer.  

Not only has this been a project I've wanted to try for awhile but it's also a way for us to have locally, responsibly raised, pork sausage without the risk of sneaky milk powder, which my son Alex cannot have.  For all my pork preparations I followed the instructions in the book Charcuterie by Brian Polcyn and Michael Ruhlman.   This book is amazing!  The directions are detailed, easy to follow and very helpfully they include a basic ratio for fresh pork sausage.  The tough part was deciding what flavor sausages to make.  

We ended up making a maple breakfast sausage (with my maple syrup), a basic herb garlic sausage (sage and rosemary from my garden), a chorizo-like sausage with smoked paprika, a garlic chive/ginger sausage (similar to the meatballs in this soup), and apple/anise seed.  I already owned the KitchenAid meat grinder attachment but went ahead and bought the sausage stuffer attachment in spite of the bad reviews.  At times burping out the bubbles of air got a little tricky but by creating a raised platform to catch the stuffed sausages I thought it worked decently, worth the space and money saved compared to buying a dedicated sausage stuffer.  You can see my set up in the photos.  I also highly recommend the food tray attachment.  Why didn't I know they had that sooner!
Here are some things I'd like to remember/try for next year:

Sausage

• Mentally prepare yourself for the lewd *sausage* jokes your husband will make repeatedly, there is no stopping him.
• Have a pot of soup on for the meat cutting.  We were starving and needed a break from our sausage testing nibbles. 
• Buy hard cider for the apple sausage 
• Get some beef to make hot dogs at the same time
• Don't bother with the breakfast sausage sized casings unless making hot dogs too.  Instead make sliceable logs of breakfast sausage.
• Don't forget to make a dried cherry sausage
• Make and hot smoke some kielbasa

Ham

• Weigh the ham before sticking in brine to accurately get curing time.  I forgot and had to guess.  The ham was still edible (and good) but it was half ham and half pork roast.  
• Add some cloves, maybe other spices to ham brine.

Bacon

• Borrow meat slicer from mom and dad
• Don't wait until next year to get another pork belly, homemade bacon is so awesome!

This year's sausages: maple breakfast, herb/garlic, apple/anise seed, garlic chive/ginger, and chorizo-inspired

My setup for sausage stuffing

The sausages with Charcuterie.

Note the labelled tags for quick reference, I highly recommend doing this.

With my mommy duties, I couldn't participate in most of the recent event in our town, Pigstock TC.  A pork enthusiasts dream, you can read more about Pigstock in this My North article. I did get to go to one of their events open to the public, a breakdown of a half hog, and took a bunch of photos.  It was incredibly helpful and maybe next year I'll do the job myself.

For a description of what is happening in each photo, go to the Flickr set

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

I added this post to the Make Your Own Mondays 

at Natural Family Awareness

DB Bacon Cups

The April 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Evelyne of the blog Cheap Ethnic Eatz. Evelyne chose to challenge everyone to make a maple mousse in an edible container. Prizes are being awarded to the most creative edible container and filling, so vote on your favorite from April 27th to May 27th at http://thedaringkitchen.com!

We took this week off of school and lazed around so much that I put off making this recipe until after it was supposed to be posted.  Alex loved the bacon cups and I can see myself making them again for him.  Wrapping the bacon so that it doesn't shrink and leave big holes is tricky and you do have to watch them to make sure they don't overcrisp.   I filled my cup with my own maple syrup sweetened mashed sweet potatoes instead of trying to make a dairy-free mousse.  Penny loved the mash.

Links:
-Our host this month is Evelyne of the blog Cheap Ethnic Eatz.  See her blog for all the recipes.
-The bacon cup recipe was inspired by not martha and 59kilos.
-Visit the Daring Kitchen to see all the creative edible containers and vote for your favorite.

Sausage and Greens Soup

Sausage and Greens Soup
I started making this variation on quick sausage soup last fall. I think it is best with turnip greens but kale, collards, Chinese cabbage and even radish tops all work well.  The key is freshly crushed anise seed that you toast in the fat rendered from the sausage.
Makes 4-6 servings

1 to 1 1/2 pounds pork sausage, I use the links from Gallagher's Centennial Farm
2 teaspoons crushed anise seed
1 1/2 teaspoons dried sage
1 large sweet onion, diced
1 stalk celery, diced
2 bunches (~1/2 pound) greens, chopped
2 quarts vegetable stock (or water and two vegetable bouillon cubes)
salt and freshly ground black pepper

-Heat up a medium soup pot.
-Use a clean pair of kitchen scissors and snip the sausage into 1/2 inch slices directly into the hot pot.  Brown the sausage well.
-Add the anise seed and a few grinds of black pepper, I crush whole seeds in a mortar and pestle right before using. Stir to toast until the anise is fragrant.
-Add the crumbled sage, onion, celery and a good pinch of salt.  Cook until the vegetables have softened.
-Add the greens and stir until they wilt down some.
-Add the stock or water and bouillon and bring to a simmer.  Before you walk away taste for seasoning and add more salt and pepper if needed.  
-Simmer 30-45 minutes and serve.

Black Pepper Asparagus with Millet and Bacon

Michigan asparagus soon to be gone for the season and Michigan strawberries just in.  I love the farmer's market in the spring!  Penny was very good at the market and shopping this morning but just refuses to be out in the garden with me.  So I'm inside cooking and blogging instead, the tomato plants will have to wait.

I've been eating a lot of millet lately.  It was one of the grains I made and froze for post baby eating, along with brown rice and quinoa which also freeze well cooked.  I hadn't eaten millet much before but it turned out to be a pleasant surprise when I realized how much I loved the corn-like flavor and fluffy texture.  Now I'm craving it.  Don't they say that thin people eat "like birds"?  My chickadees love millet!  A perfect get off the baby weight food!  Regardless, here's a great combination I made today that also utilizes my new favorite way to make asparagus.

Basic Millet Pilaf
Makes ~3 cups of millet

1 cup whole millet
2 1/2 cups water
1/2 teaspoon salt

-Toast the millet in a dry saucepan until it smells nutty and turns a light golden brown.
-Add the water and salt and bring to a boil.  Turn down to a simmer, cover and cook 30 minutes or until tender.
-Fluff with a fork and serve.  Or...
To store in the freezer for later:  Spread out the cooked millet on a baking sheet, allow to cool to room temperature, freeze and then crumble and bag.  When needed, shake out and warm in the microwave covered with waxed paper or in the oven covered with parchment.

Black Pepper Asparagus with Millet and Bacon
Serves 4 as a side or 2 as a meal

1lb fresh asparagus spears, chopped into 1 inch sections
3 cups prepared millet pilaf
4 slices of bacon, sliced into lardons *or see meat-free variations at end
1 tablespoon lemon juice
salt and freshly ground black pepper

-Heat up a skillet, cast iron is best for this, and add the lardons.  Cook until crispy.
-Remove the crispy lardons to a serving bowl and pour off almost all of the bacon fat.
-Make sure the pan is hot and add the asparagus.  Salt the asparagus lightly and grind on a generous amount of black pepper.
-Cook the asparagus over high heat tossing occasionally until it starts to brown and is hot and cooked through but still slightly crunchy.
-If you are using pre-frozen millet heat it up.
-Toss the heated millet, crispy bacon lardons and asparagus with the lemon juice and more black pepper.  Taste for seasoning and add more lemon juice/salt/pepper to your own taste.
-Serve with a side of Michigan strawberries for the best effect.

Meat-free variations:
-Chop Fakin' Bacon (smoked tempeh) into lardons and fry in 1 tablespoon of oil until crispy. 
-Caramelize 1/2 cup of chopped onion in 1 tablespoon of oil and use in place of bacon.

Fritz our dachshund caught a tomato hornworm moth this week.  John and Alex decided I couldn't kill it to protect my garden and so they relocated it.  My sincere apologies to the tomato gardener this guy finds. 

Pork Meatball Soup with Mushrooms and Cabbage

I'm generally not one to worry about spending a little more money on food but some of the prices lately are a little shocking. I was at the meat counter trying to decide what to get that was inexpensive and not my standby, chicken leg quarters. I saw some pork steaks and thought they'd do well for soup. Using the bones for the stock and grinding the meat for meatballs was a way to fully utilize the three dollar purchase and stretch it into enough soup for several meals. I used Stephanie's Top Chef recipe for meatball soup as inspiration and borrowed some directions from this photo recipe for wonton soup. My version gives you Asian flavors with less work and using items I usually have on hand. I already had dried mushrooms, green onions, cilantro and some savoy cabbage in my kitchen. You could definitely make use of other vegetables and any mushrooms you have on hand for a similar effect. If you can't find bone-in pork steaks you use any pre-made stock and enhance it with mushrooms and make the meatballs from ground pork. The smell of the broth simmering had my mouth watering but I know from first hand experience that you can cheat and make any old vegetable stock ten times better by adding in dried mushrooms.

Here's the recipe, best eaten while watching Tampopo:

Cabbage and Pork Meatball Soup
Rich mushroom scented broth, flavorful pork meatballs and crunchy cabbage.
Serves 4-6

1 1/2 lbs bone-in pork steaks or 1 lb ground pork + 3 1/2 quarts of pork or vegetable stock
1/2 cup dried wood ear mushrooms (my package calls them dried black fungus)
1 cup dried shiitake mushrooms
3 tablespoons finely chopped cilantro
2 teaspoons of grated ginger
1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
1 tablespoon soy sauce
2 teaspoons fish sauce
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
2-3 cups cabbage (savoy or napa are best), shredded
5 scallions, thinly sliced
more salt and pepper to taste

-If you are using pork steaks: remove the meat from the bones and place in a 6-quart pot. Cover the bones with 3 1/2 quarts of cold water and bring to a simmer. Simmer for at least one hour, skimming the foam/scum from the surface. Grind the pork meat in a meat grinder or food processor.
-If you are using premade stock: bring 3 quarts of the stock to a simmer in a 6-quart stock pot
-Mix the cilantro, ginger, sesame oil, soy sauce, fish sauce, 3/4 teaspoon salt and pepper into the pork. You can microwave a small ball to taste for seasoning and adjust accordingly. Refrigerate this mixture covered until the stock is ready.
-Soak the dried mushrooms in hot water for at least 15 minutes. Remove the mushrooms from the water and add the mushroom water to the stock. Make sure you leave out any grit that is at the bottom of the mushroom liquid. Remove the stems from the shiitake mushrooms and chop into quarters. Add the shiitake mushrooms to the stock pot and cook for at least a half hour. Slice the wood ear mushrooms into ribbons and set aside, throw away any tough looking parts.
-When the shiitakes have cooked in the stock for at least a half hour remove the bones and add the wood ear mushrooms and bring to a good simmer. Add at least 1 teaspoon of salt and a few grinds of pepper, taste for seasoning and add more salt and pepper if needed.
-Spoon in balls of the meat mixture into the simmering broth one at a time, stirring occasionally. I made balls about 1 1/2 tablespoons each but you can make any size. Add the cabbage and bring back to a full simmer.
-Add the scallions and serve.
-Optional: If I had them I would have used bean sprouts as a garnish. Other vegetables and/or noodles would be good as well.

Warm Miso, Maple and Bacon Dressing

This weekend I ventured out to the farmer's market despite knowing that April in Michigan doesn't offer a lot in the way of local produce. I was relieved to find that among the expected eggs, apples and frozen meat there were some fresh greens to be had. Alex and John were thrilled that the kettle corn guy was there :) The new maple syrup kettle corn was awesome!

I brought home some hunter's sausages, eggs, bread, bacon and some deliciously spicy organic Asian salad greens. When it came time to dress the greens, I was inspired by the traditional wilted spinach salad with egg and bacon and the recent Top Chef recipe for miso glazed bacon. I had my greens, local double smoked bacon, and Sleeping Bear Farms maple syrup to work with. The resulting take on a warm vinaigrette worked wonderfully with the spicy greens. Here is the recipe:

Warm Miso, Maple and Bacon Dressing with Asian Salad Greens
A new take on a warm salad dressing. Perfect on spicy or bitter salad greens.
Serves 1 as a lunch or dinner, 2 as a side

1 tablespoon shiro (white) miso
2 tablespoons brown rice vinegar (or any other rice vinegar)
1 tablespoon mirin
1 teaspoon maple syrup
a pinch of cayenne pepper
1 slice of thick cut smoked bacon
flavorful salad greens (2-3 cups)

-Wash and dry the salad greens.
-In a small bowl, mix together the miso, vinegar, mirin, maple syrup and cayenne pepper. Set aside.
-Chop the bacon into 1/2 inch lardons (I like to use kitchen shears). Cook the lardons in a small frying pan until crispy. Remove the lardons leaving the bacon grease behind.
-Add the miso mixture to the bacon grease and cook until thickened slightly (less than a minute).
-Drizzle the dressing over the greens and toss to coat. Top with the lardons and eat.
http://www.grouprecipes.com/50561/warm-miso-maple-and-bacon-dressing.html