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Last Monday, we took two Berkshire pigs to the slaughterhouse.  This was our first-ever livestock "processing" event and we have been looking forward to it since, oh, last July when we bought the pigs.  It's been fun to watch them grow and root around in the hardwood forested area of the farm.

But honestly, every time I personally looked at the pigs, all I could think about was bacon.  It really was that simple and easy for me.  Bacon. Mmmmm.

The pork cuts and sausage were ready for pick-up on Thursday.  Here's what a freezer full of pork looks like:

  Mike had the processor hold the pork bellies under refrigeration so we could begin the multi-day process of curing and smoking our very first bacon.  He had been studying the methodology by watching YouTube for tips and tricks, and he was ready to put his MaGyver skills into action.

First, he mixed up a brine using a Good Eats recipe from several years back (Scrap Iron Chef).  He placed the pork bellies into food grade plastic tubs and poured the brine over them.  They marinated for 72 hours, with Mike occasionally turning them to make sure they were evenly soaked.

   On Monday morning, he poured off the brine and dried off the bellies.  He inserted the meat hooks and then went outside to make ready the "meat locker":

Larry Holcomb let us borrow an old tall metal locker and Mike configured it with high tensil wire from which to hang the meat.  He rigged up a smoker unit to the back of the locker, connected by a tube that forced the smoke into the bottom of the locker so it would waft up towards the bellies.  He used applewood chips as the smoke medium ( and let me tell you, those things are hard to find. We had to buy them off the internet here because none of the retail stores around here can get them for us! Save yourself the gas and drive time and just order them in for delivery.)

We ran two batches of four belly pieces each.  Each batch smoked for close to 6 hours.  It was helpful that the temperature outside yesterday was in the high 30's with a wind chill factor of about 28 below zero.  (I might be exaggerating on the wind chill by 10 degrees or so.) We could leave the smoke on for hours and not worry about the meat getting into the danger zone above 40 degrees.

I wrapped each piece in plastic film and refrigerated them overnight.  Today, Mike put all of the bellies into the freezer for about an hour to firm them up and then he carved them up into thick-sliced pieces of goodness.

    Here's a few half pieces left from the first round of sampling.  They didn't stick around for long.....and you'll notice that I left the picture large and detailed so you could see the crispy lusciousness for yourself.  Yes, this bacon was the best tasting bacon I have ever eaten.

 All these pictures are copyrighted by Denise Burns. Don't even think about using them without written permission. Not even on your Facebook page.  Oh, our Facebook farm page is here:  Burns Best Farm.  Please join us as a fan and then invite your friends to join.  The Facebook page gets updated a *whole lot* more frequently than this blog does!  I have a feature going called "Heirloom Tomato of the Day" which is motivation for me to "Think Spring" in the middle of all this winter weather that has been turning the ground white.

I have spent four decades thinking that I did not like sauerkraut. I'm pretty sure my Granny made me try it when I was little and it was too sour for my taste.  Even though my palate has widened considerably in adulthood, nothing about store-bought sauerkraut could convince me to change my mind about hating that flavor.

So when I learned at the Weston A. Price conference that fermented foods are a key part of a traditional diet, I cringed.  I am on board with the lots-of-butter, raw milk, and animal fat part of the plan but I was not at all sure I could successfully add the fermented foods into the mix. 

After trying little bitty amounts of several fermented dishes on the buffet at the conference, I decided that maybe my problem was with the store-bought stuff.  The homemade vegetables I tasted were very good in small portions (which is sort of the goal.)  I decided to make it at home and give it an open-minded review.

I used the Nourishing Traditions recipe for basic sauerkraut on page 92: shredded cabbage, natural sea salt, caraway seeds and whey.  I used a head of organic green cabbage from Greenlife (our own cabbages aren't far enough along yet to cut.)  I started the recipe 8 days before Thanksgiving with that target as my goal.

You are probably ahead of me already.  All the adults had sauerkraut as part of our Thanksgiving meal and it was very tasty.  Commercial kraut is terribly mushy.  Homemade kraut still has a light green color and a nice crunch.  I really like it, quite a bit!  I am having a small serving most every day and the next batch I make will be with purple cabbage, just for kicks.  I will cut the tablespoon of caraway seeds in half in the next batch because that flavor is pretty dominant; if you like rye bread and dig caraway, the original proportions will probably suit you fine, but if that flavor is not one of your faves, consider cutting way back.  I think on the next green cabbage batch I make I'll substitute celery seed for a little twist. 

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So it is in the context of a new appreciation for fermented foods that I read today on Instapundit blog about acetic acid and its wonderfully positive impact on moderating blood sugar.  Seems that studies out of Japan and Italy show that if a small amount of white vinegar is eaten as part of a salad dressing alongside a moderately carb-heavy meal, the acetic acid in the vinegar works to slow down sugar absorption into the blood stream. Vinegar blocks the digestive enzymes that convert carbohydrates into sugar. 

I use Bragg's Organic Apple Cider Vinegar.  The flavor is very nice and not at all sharp.

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I like to know the "why" behind the traditional/sacred foods that the WAPF recommends.  It's really amazing how traditional people groups instinctively understood the importance of certain foods without any scientific knowledge of vitamins, minerals, enzymes and/or amino and fatty acids.  Nutritional research is revealing how wise these people groups were in their approach to eating for overall health and wellness, and this news on vinegar, acetic acid and fermented foods is part of that wisdom.  

I was online looking for a recipe in the archives of Parade Magazine earlier this week when I discovered that one of my favorite cookbook authors of all time, Sheila Lukins, had passed away at the end of August. 

Sheila was one of the first serious professional cooks I began to follow in college (mid-80's) when the gourmet food movement rolled out of NYC and California and started to make itself known in the South.  She was the co-owner of a gourmet take-out store, The Silver Palate, in NYC that opened in the mid 70's and by 1982, she and co-owner, Julie Rosso, wrote a cookbook featuring their successful recipes from the store.  The Silver Palate Cookbook is just a gem of a book.  My college roommate, Sally, gave it to me for Christmas in 1985, when it was already on its third printing and the poor book looks like it's been torn top to bottom, I've used it so much.

The Mayonnaise recipe is my favorite, the Potato-Cheese Soup is so good, all of the salad dressings are note-worthy, and I first made the Raspberry Chicken recipe for Mike when we were dating (he loved it).  The cookbook was re-released in 2007 on its 25th anniversary.  Most cookbooks never make it to a second printing, much less an anniversary celebratory printing.  Wow.

Today I am making the Decadent Chocolate Cake, in honor of my mom and in memory of Sheila Lukins, who played a significant role in my love of cooking and my love of eating good food. My best wishes to her family as they mourn her passing at a much-too-early age. I will miss her!

I have been making the most delicious homemade yogurt in my crock-pot for the last few weeks and it's so tasty and inexpensive, I find myself in danger becoming a homemade yogurt evangelist.  You can do it!  It's the best!  You have to try it!  (I have said all those things to different people in the last week alone.  See what I mean?)

First, credit where it's due:  I learned how to make homemade yogurt the easy way through this wonderful blog, A Year of Slow Cooking.  The blog is authored by Stephanie O'Dea and her goal last year was to use her slow cooker every day of the year with a new recipe. The project was so successful that she landed a book contract and her cookbook, Make it Fast, Cook it Slow: The Big Book of Everyday Slow Cooking, published this spring.  Pretty cool, huh?  

Back to the yogurt.  The recipe is so easy, you will.not.believe that it works so well.  However, the total elapsed time to achieve liftoff is at least 12 hours, so start late afternoon if you want yogurt for breakfast the following morning.

You will need:

*One-half gallon milk

*1/2 C store-bought yogurt, which supplies the bacterial starter culture

Heat the milk on low in the crock-pot for 2 1/2 hours. Turn the heat off (leave the lid on tight) and set the timer for 3 hours.  At the end of 3 hours, take two cups of the cooled milk out into a bowl and whisk in the 1/2 C of store-bought yogurt. Pour the mixture back into the crock-pot and whisk to mix the culture in thoroughly.  Replace the lid, unplug the crock-pot, and then wrap a thick bath towel around the crock-pot and over the top to insulate the crock and slow the cooling process.  Leave it all night long to work it's magic.

In your breakfast bowl, stir in some strawberry jam for a tastier version of a dairy case staple. The thickened consistency is quite similar to Stonyfield.

We use this in smoothies for afternoon snacks and I sweeten it with local raw honey after adding in frozen bananas and a splash of vanilla extract.  The family lines up for large glasses and the boys wear their "Got Milk" moustaches with pride. (You must pronounce that word "moose-stash" if you want the whole experience.) 

The next best part of this recipe?  You make half a gallon of yogurt for less than $3.00.  Compare that with $3.69-3.99 per quart for the retail fancy organic brands.  Hmm, $8.00 per half gallon vs. $3.00.  Tough call.

My personal spin on this after having made it now for several batches:  if you choose to use a store-bought yogurt as the source of the culture, do not rely on private-label grocery store brands.  The bacterial cultures are not strong enough to culture the whole half-gallon and you will wind up with a lot of whey (the yellowish liquid that sits on top of the yogurt.) Go ahead and splurge for a 6 oz. cup of Stonyfield plain (fat free is OK). I actually use the whole 6 oz. cup instead of just the 4 oz. half-cup the recipe calls for, and my final product is silky smooth without any liquid whey.

You can also buy live culture from a number of sources. I haven't done that yet but I plan to try it out as soon as I can place an internet order from the people at Cultures for Health.

Last summer marked my first attempt at saving basil seed from my own garden.  It was easy and pretty rewarding, but the true test of whether or not seed saving works is germination the following year. So to hedge our bets, we bought a couple of new varieties this year and planted both the saved seed and the purchased seed close to the greenhouse where we could tend to it easily.

The saved seed germinated beautifully and has grown well, making me both proud and confident that I did it once and can do it again.  The purchased seed also grew into very vigorous plants.

As a result of all this experimentation, I have lots and lots of beautiful basil.  (**See my Marietta Farmers Market special offer at the bottom of this post.)

So with my bountiful harvest, I have been making pesto and freezing it for winter.  I made a couple of batches last year and we really enjoyed it in January and February when there is no fresh basil to be had except at the grocery store for $2.50 for 2 ounces.  I found these Ball #82000 5-Pk. 8-Oz. Plastic Freezer Jars that work perfectly for pesto and they are durable enough that I am using the same jars again this summer (frugality is my friend.)

Here is the super tasty recipe I pinched off the Food Network website (thank you Dave Lieberman):

5 big handfuls basil leaves (about 2 hefty bunches)

1/2 cup pine nuts or 3/4 cup walnuts (I toast them first) 

1/2 cup fresh grated Parmesan or Pecorino cheese

Juice of 1 small lemon

2 cloves garlic, peeled

Kosher salt

About 20 grinds freshly ground black pepper

3/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Place all ingredients with 1/2 cup of the oil in a blender and blend. Gradually drizzle in the remaining 1/4 cup of oil until pesto is thick and smooth.

Yield: about 1 1/2 cups

I make two batches of this at a time in a blender or a Vitamix and then I pour about 3/4 cup of pesto into each plastic freezer jar.  (You'll note that the larger recipe for Bow Tie Pasta with Chicken and Cherry Tomatoes calls for 3/4 cup, while the pesto recipe makes twice that much.) Two recipes of the pesto filled up five freezer jars when I made pesto on Monday.

Market Special:  If you are one of my Saturday morning Marietta market customers and you'd like a pound of fresh basil for $10 (less than half the price of what you'd pay at the megamart for a similar amount, plus mine's organically grown!), please email me on the left sidebar of the blog and tell me to bring you a bag. A one-pound bag would easily make three batches if you follow the recipe above, which would allow you to put at least 7 servings of pesto in the freezer for a quick-thaw dinner option. 

Our family loves this squash casserole. It's not a cheese casserole with a little squash thrown in; it has no canned-soup cream sauce to thicken it up.  It's a wonderful taste of summer squash at it's very best and since the CSA bags are heavy with squash lately, you might be in need of a new way to cook it!

• 1 3/4 pounds crookneck yellow squash or other yellow summer squash
• 1/4 pound zucchini or additional yellow summer squash
• 1/2 cup coarse-chopped carrots
• 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
• 1 large onion, preferably yellow, chopped
• 1 plump garlic clove, minced
• 1 1/4 cups saltine or Ritz cracker crumbs
• 1/2 cup grated mild to medium Cheddar cheese
• Hot pepper sauce, such as Tabasco
• Salt and freshly milled black pepper
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a medium baking dish.

Slice the yellow squash and zucchini lengthwise into quarters, then cut into 1/2-inch-thick wedges. Place the yellow squash, zucchini and carrots in a saucepan, barely cover with water and salt well. Bring to a boil; reduce the heat to medium and cover. Cook about 20 minutes, until the vegetables are very soft.

Meanwhile, warm 3 tablespoons of the butter in a medium skillet over medium-low heat. Stir in the onion and cook slowly until very soft and translucent, 6 to 8 minutes. Add the garlic and cook an additional minute. Scrape the mixture into a mixing bowl. Wipe out the skillet, return it to medium-low heat, and add to it the remaining tablespoon of butter. Stir in 1/2 cup of the cracker crumbs and cook briefly until the crumbs are golden. Scrape them onto a small plate and reserve them.

Drain the squash mixture, mashing the vegetables just a bit. Spoon it into the mixing bowl. Stir in the remaining 3/4 cup of cracker crumbs, cheese and a good splash or two of the pepper sauce. Salt and pepper generously to taste. Stir in the eggs and spoon the mixture into the prepared baking dish. Scatter the toasted cracker crumbs over the top. Bake uncovered for about 30 minutes, until golden brown and lightly firm in the center. Serve hot.

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**Burns family notes:  I always use Ritz crackers.  And the Tabasco/Cholula sauce is important. It doesn't crank up the heat but it adds a certain something that is missing if I don't shake a few drops in.  Hard to explain.

I also use this casserole as a way to preserve squash for cold weather.  I follow the recipe all the way up to the point at which I pour the mixture into the prepared baking dish.  Instead, I line an 8"x8" pyrex glass baking dish with a large piece of aluminum foil.  I push the foil into the corners, then pour in the squash mixture, smoothing it out to fill the corners and even out the top.  Then I fold the extra foil over the top, completely covering the squash.  I slide the whole thing into the freezer overnight, and then in the morning, take the squash casserole foil brick out of the glass pan and seal it up in a gallon-sized zip top bag.

When you decide to bake up your frozen squash casserole, defrost it in the refrigerator for up to 48 hours, inside the gallon plastic bag.  There will be excess water that comes out of the casserole; drain that away before carefully putting the foil wrapped casserole back into the pyrex pan you originally used to freeze it. Unfold the foil top, crumble the cracker crumbs onto the top, and then bake.  It might take an extra 10 minutes to firm up in the middle.

Here's a link to the pictures from last summer of the casseroles I made for the freezer.   Just in case you are a visual learner and need to see the how-to! 

What do you do with beets in your CSA share?  A couple of menu ideas pop to mind:

Beet Green Gratin, courtesy of Alton Brown at the Food Network website.

Kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper

3/4 cup crumbled crackers (recommended: Ritz crackers

Directions

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Melt the butter in a saucepan. Add the mushrooms and garlic and sweat. Add the beet greens and mix well. Remove pan from heat. Season with salt and pepper.

In a separate bowl, combine the egg yolks, ricotta, Parmesan cheese, and salt. Combine everything and put into a lightly oiled 9 by 11-inch baking dish. Top with the crumbled crackers and bake for 30 minutes covered. Uncover and bake for an additional 15 minutes.

*Burns family note:  we substitute chopped Vidalia onion in this recipe instead of using mushrooms. Shallots would also be nice.  

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Roasted Beets:

This is the way we cook and use beets most frequently.  Cut the stems off the beet, leaving about a quarter inch of the stems attached.  Scrub the beets with a soft brush to remove any excess dirt.  Fold over a sheet of aluminum foil and crimp the sides closed, making a foil package.  Put the scrubbed beets into the package and then fold the top over and crimp closed.

Bake on a tray at *350 for 30 minutes (for small beets) and closer to an hour for large beets. They are done when a sharp knife can be inserted with no firm resistance.  Remove them from the foil and using two paper towels, lightly rub the skin and the top stem area until the shiny beet comes out, ready to be eaten either warm with butter, salt and pepper or chilled and added to a summer salad of mixed greens and arugula, goat cheese and toasted walnuts. (A little viniagrette on this is a lovely addition.)

On the experimental food schedule for this week is arugula pesto.  I've read in a couple of places that arugula makes a nice substitute for basil in a homemade pesto sauce, and since I have plenty of arugula and my basil is still really short, I'm going to try it out for an appetizer this week.

Here's my pesto recipe, courtesy of Dave Lieberman at the Food Network.  I toast the pine nuts for 5 minutes or until they are lightly browned and very fragrant.  If you make the entire bow-tie pasta recipe (the pesto is a recipe-inside-a-recipe), you might want to substitute goat cheese for the feta.  The kids like goat cheese better than feta and it's a small concession to make in order to get them to eat pesto pasta.

(Last year, I made several recipes of this pesto and froze it. We enjoyed fresh summer flavor all winter long and everyone acted like it was a real treat.)

We are perhaps 5 days away from picking the very first cherry tomatoes of the year, a Gold Rush currant tomato that we haven't grown before. I might be wrong; they might not be ripe for another week.  But it is looking like the smaller-sized Gold Rush will beat the Matt's Wild Cherry onto the table (or more precisely, into my mouth).

Stir-Fried Bok Choy with Roasted Peanuts (Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, Deborah Madison, Broadway Books, 1997.)

3 tablespoons raw peanuts

2 teaspoons roasted peanut oil

1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes

1 1/2 pounds bok choy

2 tablespoons peanut oil

4 garlic cloves, minced

4 teaspoons minced ginger

2 tablespoons soy sauce

1 teaspoon cornstarch mixed with 3 tablespoons water or vegetarian/chicken stock

 1.  Fry the peanuts in 2 teaspoons roasted peanut oil until they're golden. Chop with the pepper flakes and a few pinches of salt and set aside.

2.  Slice off the bok choy stems and cut them into 1-inch pieces. Leave the leaves whole. Set the wok over high heat.  Add the 2 tablespoons peanut oil and roll it around the sides. When hot, add the garlic and ginger and stir-fry for 1 minute. Add the bok choy and a few pinches of salt and stir-fry until wilted and glossy.  Add the soy sauce and cornstarch and stir-fry for 1-2 minutes more or until the leaves are shiny and glazed. Add the crushed peanuts, toss and serve.

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Chicken Fried Rice (adapted from the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook)

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1 cup long grain rice

2 cups chicken stock

2 carrots, sliced 

1/2 onion, chopped

1 cup cooked chicken, chopped/shredded

2 tablespoons soy sauce

1 1/2 pounds bok choy (stems sliced and leaves sliced into ribbons)

1/2 teaspoons celery seed

3 eggs, beaten lightly

1.  Combine chicken and soy sauce; set aside.

2.  Over medium-high heat, heat oil in a wok or a large saute pan with a lid and add uncooked rice; stirring frequently, fry rice in hot oil until light brown.  Add chicken stock slowly, then add carrots and onions. Cover and turn heat to medium low. Cook for 8 minutes.

3. Add bok choy stems, chicken and celery seed. Stir well and sample the rice to see if it's tender.  If so, stir in the beaten eggs and stir thoroughly as the eggs cook and bind up some of the rice.  

4. When eggs are almost completely cooked through, add the bok choy leaves and stir fry until the leaves wilt and are evenly distributed throughout the rice.  Remove from heat and serve.

*(Can also add half a can of water chestnuts if you want more crunch. Also can add a half a cup of frozen green peas when the eggs are added. Our family eats this with canned cranberry sauce as a side dish.  We're a little strange. :) ) 

Today is a red-letter day in my epic struggle to make a decent whole wheat loaf of bread.  Not a loaf using a bag of whole wheat flour from the store, but freshly milled wheat that I grind myself, loaded with vitamins, minerals, enzymes and fiber! 

I bought the grain mill in the summer of 2007 and since then have been tweaking recipes that came with the mill.  The doughs mixed up into a completely different consistency than any white flour bread I've ever tried (and I made white flour bread fairly often).  They were sticky, heavy, and practically impossible for me to shape.  I had pretty much abandoned any effort to make a loaf of bread and resorted to making (oddly shaped) dinner rolls.  My dreams of incorporating real whole grain bread as a daily part of our diet were beginning to fade.

Then, Meredith at entdraughts blog* posted about her bread-making epiphany.  She checked out a new cookbook from the library, Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads, and she made the master recipe. Her bread was transformed from a heavy, dense brick into a fluffy, high-rising loaf.  Since I was tired of baking concave loaves, I tried out the book. 

Reinhart calls his recipes "formulas" and I could see why: there is a lot of chemistry in the book explaining what happens to whole grains as they break down and form gluten.  Flashbacks to Nutrition 320! However, putting the formula together was both easy and quick.  Looking back on it, the dough comes together much more quickly than the recipes I was using before; there are fewer ingredients and the mixing and kneading time is cut in half.

Isn't this a nice looking rise?  I've seen this height before, but 10 minutes into the oven, the loaf would collapse and go concave.  So annoying!  Would this new formula be different?

Oh yeah, baby, as Anne Burrell on "Secrets of a Restaurant Chef " (Food Network) would say. The rise held and I even saw "oven spring", which is a fancy way of saying the bread rose even a bit more in the heat of the oven before the crust started to set.  I took a peek at the 20 minute mark and was overjoyed to see a rounded top.

I sliced into this loaf after letting it cool for an hour (recommended in the formula) and since I like the heel piece best, I snacked.  The flavor is very good; I will add a bit more salt the next time I make it (which will be on Tuesday) but the texture was remarkable: I got thin slices that held together well enough to make a sandwich, which never happened with the old recipes.  

All this from a library book!  Which means, of course, I now have to go buy the book so I can try the Pizza Crust formula and the Cinnamon Bun formula and the Power Bread formula.

If you are making a less-than-perfect whole grain loaf of bread, pick up this book and change your formula.  It is as delicious as it is beautiful as it is nutritious.  I did it all by myself and you can, too. Don't settle for anything less.

*I know Meredith in real life, so when she gave the formula her glowing testimonial, I knew I could trust it for truth.  I don't go about believing everything I read on the internet!