Giggle.....well
, we do now. And lots of it, too! I already told you about the ordeal of loading the pigs into the trailer to go to the slaughter house. Well, the friendly folks there called us Thursday morning to say that the meat from
both pigs was ready to be picked up. Yikes! I thought we were going to get one at a time so I could figure out where to put it all. Oh, well, may as well just jump in with both feet and figure this out as we go.
It was a little chilly out Thursday and we had snow flurries most of the day. At least we didn't have to worry about the frozen meat sitting in the car as we worked on unloading it all into the freezers.
At the slaughter house we watched in amazement (and with a little dismay) as 2 men and 1 of the women kept walking into the huge walk-in freezer and coming out with filled grocery bags of our pork. And then they wheeled two 3 foot square dollies out of the freezer, loaded with even more pork! Oh. My. I have to admit it was beginning to be a little overwhelming.
They all helped us load the pork into the back of my Tahoe and when we were finally done loading, the car was full. Seriously. Full. The entire back of the car was pork heaven. Now what? Joel and I nervously laughed as we pulled out of the slaughter house, wondering if we were going to have enough freezer space to keep all this meat.
Well, we drove home and I put on my organizer hat and we made a plan. Joel brought the bags into the pavilion where our trusty old freezer and refrigerator stand. We weighed each bag and recorded it in a tablet so we know for future reference how much meat we netted from 2 pigs.
Our old refrigerator's side by side freezer became our overflow....thank goodness we had this. Yup, those are all packages of sausage patties on the left hand door. They are the ones I couldn't fit into the big upright freezer along with the other sausage. You see, we had 4 grocery bags of sausage alone. All 92 lbs. of it. Yes, you read that right. 92 lbs. of sausage patties. Yikes!
Yup, this freezer started out empty before we picked up the pork. It's pretty full now. We have everything from sausage patties to baby back ribs. Tenderloin to ham steaks. Smoked backbone for soups and hams. Thin sliced ham for breakfast to boston butt. And picnic roast to shoulder cuts. Our Big Green Egg is going to be put to good use this next year, that's for sure.
We even have tons of bacon, already smoked and ready to cook up. Here's our other freezer in the house. At least now the meat is all arranged in an orderly fashion so I know where the different cuts of meat are on the shelves. That should make it easier to locate what I need next time I want some pork for a dinner recipe.
Speaking of recipes......Saturday morning we three decided it was a good time to finally do some taste testing. Nothing like a hearty breakfast on a leisurely Saturday to bring the family together. I brought out the waffle iron and made up a batch of waffles while the bacon cooked in the oven.
I despise cooking bacon on top of the stove as it splatters all over everything within a three foot radius. To make bacon I turn my oven on at 425 degrees, line a baking sheet with foil, put a cake rack on top of the foil and lay the bacon strips on top of the rack.
Now the bacon cooks up nice and lean as all the fat drips down onto the foil lined tray, leaving crisp bacon on top of the rack. Clean up is a breeze, too, as all I have to do is remove the foil from the pan and wash the one rack. Ta-da! And no more bacon splatter all over the stove, counters and floor.
Ok, our concensus is that we love the sausage.....great flavor and we like the recipe they used to make it. It may be a little salty, but that's ok. The verdict is still out on the bacon. It cooked up really nice, and we like the flavor but it's not as "bacon-y" as what we are used to buying from the grocery store. I think it needs to be smoked again in our Big Green Egg. I'll be experimenting with that over the next few months. For the next year and beyond we will continue to try different cuts of the pork and experiment with recipes, both old and new.
Here are the stats for our first attempt at raising pigs.
Pork Chop weighed in at 388 lbs. Hanging weight(after gutting, ugh!) was 297 lbs.
Bacon weighed in at 378 lbs. Hanging weight was 274 lbs.
Total hanging weight was a whopping 571 lbs. After the slaughter house removed bones, etc. and processed the pork, we carted home just over 421 lbs. of meat. Yikes. By the time the weather warms up we should be ready to have a real humdinger of a barbeque. We certainly have enough meat for one!
I think next time we only need one pig, don't you?
Debbie
