Sauerkraut was NOT a resounding success . . .

Not sure what happened with the 'kraut I canned last fall - the first time I had done it, it worked out well. This time, even though I let it stand longer, to get more fermented (per some of the comments I had read online), it is not sour enough AND has too much salt. For me, that's saying something, as I'm a salt freak. The first time I did 'kraut, I had some sort of "recipe" of amount of cabbage to amount of salt, but I couldn't locate it, so I had found what seemed to be a similar process online. I don't think I overdid the salt the process called for, and I had about that amount of cabbage, so it's a mystery. If I do more 'kraut next summer, I'll have to spend some time researching better ways to ferment it, as this particular process didn't yield a product we're crazy about. I now have several jars of 'kraut that probably won't get used, unless I can figure out a creative way to salvage them. As is, I'm not willing to eat them. If anyone knows a sure-fire way to ferment cabbage into 'kraut, please, please, please let me know!

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Leftover Thanksgiving Turkey - fun with Corn Chowder!

Many of you who know us know we usually make Turkey Pot Pies (see the recipe on our blog) with leftover Thanksgiving goodies. We still love Turkey Pot Pie, but we still have so many from last year (an even bigger bird than this year!), we decided we would do other things with this year's leftover turkey (we roasted a 33# bird from the flock we raised). So I made a Turkey Corn Chowder that is savory and yummy out of part of the leftovers. Here's how it came to be: Finished Turkey Corn Chowder First, right after Thanksgiving, I put the turkey carcass, from which most of the large meat pieces had been removed, into our 22-quart stock pot, along with some carrot, onion, and celery, to make turkey stock. When the stock was done simmering, I had pulled the carcass bones and all the meat that had cooked off out of the pot, picking out bones from the meat. I had about 2 quarts of small chunks and bits of turkey, most of which was the very tender, sweet meat that is around t...

Big turkeys from our farm - happy customers at Thanksgiving!

Well, our turkey raising experiment this year went well - probably a little too well. We had a lot of orders for birds in the 15 - 25# range and our smallest bird was over 21#. They REALLY thrived out in the pasture. We plan to raise more next year, but probably start them somewhat later (these birds were 22 weeks old) and manage their feeding protocol a little differently. We used the two biggest birds - 41.25# and a whopping 41.90# guy . . . whew! Darrell had written an informational piece about " How to Handle Roasting a Big Turkey ", and I had some of those big disposable roasting pans to give to people who feared their regular roaster wouldn't cut it. So, several of our customers shared their story of what they did with the bird and send some photos. There're also photos at the end of what we did with the two monsters. Leah C. sent these photos and a note about their experience. She had been leery of doing a big bird, so Darrell's instructions and ...

Mushroom & Andouille Sausage Soup

For our retail pork offering, we had some sausage processed as "andouille", which is used a lot in spicy southern cooking, especially Cajun/Creole. We wanted to try some of it ourselves, so went searching for recipes calling for andouille sausage. This recipe comes from this link for Southern Food and made a great "chilly, rainy night" supper for us. This is a delicious creamy mushroom soup with a little cheese and chunks of andouille sausage. Feel free to use another variety of smoked sausage in this recipe. Ingredients: 1 tablespoons vegetable oil 12 to 16 ounces andouille sausage, halved lengthwise then thinly sliced 16 ounces sliced mushrooms 4 tablespoons butter 4 green onions, thinly sliced 1 clove garlic, mashed and finely minced ...

Good Food Down on the Farm

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