Mmmm Bacon!

Let me start out by saying I Love Bacon.  It's not a secret.  That salty, smoked flavor.  Dear I say, I also dream about it.  I've always been one of those people that like salty things.  However, I didn't know what I was missing until I tasted the bacon from our pig.  Oh my, is it good.  You see, the supermarket bacon that I always bought really does not compare to the taste and flavor of this farm raised bacon.  I always found supermarket bacon to be sub-par, fatty, and when cooked, disappeared into almost nothing because all the fat was cooked off.

The bacon from the farm was thickly sliced, and when I cooked the bacon, the bacon pieces did not dwindle to nothingness.  Nope, the pieces cooked up perfectly with lots of substance to it.

What did I make with our first batch of bacon?  A BL without the T.  I had no tomatoes and the hubs doesn't care for fresh tomatoes so I made a bacon, lettuce, and mayo on toasted wheat bread.  Oooh, sooooo good!

Knowing Where Your Food Comes From

Vegetarians... Look away, this post is about a lot of pork meat! On the family farm, they raise pigs for family consumption. The main reason they raise pigs is because they were concerned with where their food comes from. When they raise their own pork, they can ensure the animals are raised ethically and organically. The pigs have a good life, they have an indoor and outdoor pen where they can roam as they please, and they eat organic feed and organic farm raised vegetables such as pumpkin, squash, corn, fruit and greens.  This makes a large difference in the taste of the meat.  The meat has lots of nutrients because of what the pigs eat, and it has less fat content.    The fat that the pig does have, the lard, is also used to cook with since it's full of nutrients.  My husband and I recently saw the movie Food Inc. and it really was an eye opener.  We've been thinking a lot about where our food comes from, how it's raised, and how safe it is to eat.  It's the main reason why we've started our vegetable garden and is the reason we bought a pig to be raised on the family farm.  My husband teasingly named him "Yummy" and it was!  Yummy was brought to the butcher in December, and we split the pork meat with the farm.  My mother-in-law cooked a smoked ham for our first dinner.  It was cooked in the woodstove.  Oh, my, the taste was YUMMY.

As we were eating dinner, my husband exclaimed, "everything on this plate was grown or raised on the farm!"  On the plate next to the smoked ham were sides of dilly beans, pickled beets, and roasted root vegetables of potatoes, sweet potatoes, and turnips.  The hubs and I thought this was so fantastic, to have everything on our plate come from the farm.  My in-laws were amused by our excitement because this is an everyday occurrence for them.  Most of their meals come from the farm!

We brought back two large boxes of pork meat.  The farmer (hub's dad) said Yummy was about 275 pounds when he was brought to the butcher.  "A good size" he said, although "250 pounds" is preferred, because that is the perfect meat to fat ratio for a pig.  Can you believe these two boxes only contain half of the pig?  So much meat, totally amazing!  One box contained smoke ham, ham hocks, ribs and pork chops.

The other box was filled with smoked bacon and italian and hot sausage.  Totally drooling!

 

We bought this freezer chest on sale at Lowe's to store all the meat.  This was a good investment for us, since we plan to store veggies and fruit that we grow in the garden in here too!

The freezer chest has these nice hanging baskets in it so it's easy to organize.  The two sausages and bacon got their own basket!

I'm already dreaming about what dishes I can make with these beauties!

Lots of thick cut smoked bacon!  Just heaven!

Bottom of the freezer is holding all the smoked hams, pork chops and ribs!  I'm not sure how long this meat will last us, but I am so looking forward to cooking with it!  We figured out the cost for the pork meat was about $3.00 per pound.  The price was factored by the cost of the pig, the cost of the feed and veggies, and the cost of the butchering.  $3.00 / per pound for us is a good price, because we've seen organic pork in our supermarket for $5.98 a pound!  To be honest though, knowing how this pork was raised makes it priceless!

Feeding the Chickens

When we are at the family farm, I love to be in the barn and be around the farm animals. Here I am in the chicken coop helping with feeding them and giving them fresh warm water. Being that it's -10F out, they need warm water twice a day because the water freezes pretty quickly despite being in the barn. The barn is not heated, but it's a completely covered structure so they are out of the wind and snow. It's still pretty cold in there.

The farm has mostly hens, and 2 roosters.  In total, there's about 50 or so chickens in the coop.  The chickens are free range, they have a little doorway at the bottom of the coop for them to go outside to get fresh air and roam around the farm.  However, being that it's so cold, they mostly stay inside during the winter.  They eat only organic feed and organic vegetables.  Their egg production is less in the winter, but they still produce enough eggs for the family to eat all winter long.  None will be sold.  Eggs are sold starting spring, and they are so delicious.  100% organic and free-range chicken eggs are like no other!  So rich with flavor!

Here's a photo of the nesting box.  The hens take turns using the nesting boxes to lay their eggs.  Sometimes the hens are impatient and lay their eggs on the perching areas.  Hey, when you gotta lay, you gotta lay!

Here Chick, Chick, Chick

On the farm, they raise a lot of chickens. They stay in a coop inside the barn at night, but in the day, they are free-range. They are free to travel anywhere on the farm, which they love to do.  They love to forage for food and find grubs and other treats.

The farm also just got in 35 new chicks. My father-in-law told me that with their first group of chickens, they taught them to come in to eat when they said "Here Chick, Chick, Chick". The chickens associated that call with food. So cool! Hopefully these baby chicks will learn that too. It gets cold on the farm, so they have this heat lamp to keep the chicks warm.

Aren't these baby brown chicks just adorable. I just want to pick one up and hug it!  I can't remember what breed they are, but they are prolific egg layers when they are full-grown.

These white chickens are being raised as "meat chickens", but "shhhhh!" don't tell them that. Gulp!

A Giant Rhubarb

The family farm is growing lots of different crops.  Here is a shot of the fields.  Most of the crops are growing past the second fence in the back field.  The farm sells most of the crops at 2 different farmers markets and directly to their client list. 

There are rows of corn.  I found out that the pigs love to eat these, stalk, husk and corn!

And pumpkins!  This one was gorgeous! 

There was also white pumpkins! I've never seen these before, they are so unique!

Long Island Squash, if you have never eaten these, they are delicious! It reminds me of pumpkin but milder.

And my favorite, Acorn Squash.  These aren't ripe yet.  This is by far my favorite type of squash.  Cut it in half, drizzle EVOO, salt and pepper and roast in oven.  Yummy.

The coolest plants on the farm were these giant rhubarb plants. Wow, they were enormous!

Road Trip to the Family Farm

I've been absent with blogging this week, because we took a road trip up North to the hubs parents' family farm.  They live 7 hours north of us in upstate New York.  It's so far north that it is closer to Ottawa, Canada than New York City.  They call this area the North Country.  It's very rural and scenic with a lot of farms and barns and livestock.  I love looking out the window and taking pictures. 

I'm sorry these photos are blurry. My camera doesn't do well with motion. Many of the barns are old, I thought this one looked really neat.

Cows!  Whenever I saw cows grazing, I got super excited.  They are so cute, I just want to pet one!

Here's even more cows!

After 7 hours of driving, we finally pulled up to the family farm. This is the pole barn that the hubs' father built by himself. Isn't it lovely?  And the horses, Grace on the left, and Jill on the right.  I love seeing the horses, they are so sweet.

There were some massive clouds rolling in, check out the dairy farm next door to the family farm.  Isn't that view just picturesque?  I love the storm clouds, looks just amazing.

More photos to come on what we did at the farm!