Random 5 Friday

1.  A secret:  I love the holidays.  I always go all out, and make the house feel festive and warm or spooky, whatever the case may be.  We participate fully in the event, suspending our disbelief wherever possible. But when it's over...it's over.  Halloween came down first thing this morning before work, and what remains is the harvest decor that will last through Thanksgiving. 

2.  Finally:  After two full weeks of battling the funk I finally get to meet our latest little tastebud today!

3.  Oh Poo!:  One of our tasks this weekend is to give the hen house a thorough once over and freshly bed the ladies down for the winter.  Fun stuff.  Ha!  At least the compost pile will be happy!

4.  Cured:  We cut into our homemade pancetta last night to give it a taste.  Oh my!  All I can say is there is more curing in our future!

5.   Treats:  These bar cookies are to. die. for.  I am always amazed at how some things that I imagine are difficult simply are not.  Take the ten minutes to make the homemade salted caramel for this one!  Happy weekend!

Oh Yes We Are!

A couple of months ago for our Tastebuds dinner club as part of a deep south theme and did braised pork belly.  We had about half of the meat leftover and were trying to decide what to do with it.  When you have six pounds of pork belly, well what else can you do?  We decided to roll up our sleeves and dabble in home curing.  We are making pancetta!  Oh yes we are!

 It is a multi-step process and we began with removing the skin, and packing the meat completely in a salt mixture. Once it was thoroughly coated, we rubbed in a spice mix.

Once we finished this we wrapped it in plastic wrap and pressed it between two weighted cookie sheets on the bottom shelf of the fridge.  We will have to flip it daily for a week.

As with many things we try, this process has been surprisingly easy.  Once the week is up we will rinse it off completely, then roll it very tightly in cheese cloth and hang it in the root cellar to finish curing.  That process will take anywhere from a few weeks to a few months depending on what flavors we are seeking out.  Just another Saturday around the farm!

**As an interesting aside:  this cut of meat would be called a flap.  The same cut that we have been discussing in our Blog Camp Goes to MIT class.