Painting and heating

The painting is progressing, but Doug has nearly run out of paint and not sure where the delivery of the new lot is. It is very trying managing to get things delivered to the farm as all the delivery companies apart from the post office always claim to not be able to find us (we think they don't even look!)

Looking good though.

The pump for the central heating (two radiators in what will be the bedroom, plus the towel rail by the shower) went bang a few weeks ago when Doug turned it on to check it was working in time for winter. It is still under warrantee so the guy who installed it is ordering a new one. This was somewhat delayed by me failing to ask Doug to send them a photo of the pump. Annoying as surely they knew what it was. Annoying because I should have noticed Doug wasn't on the cc so couldn't send the photo. Still, such is life and we will get there in the end. 

New mincer

In preparation for the pig fest on Friday we have bought a new mincing machine. We have a hand one which is hard work and one that goes on the kitchen aid which can't really cope with the quantity we want to mince.
Here it is.

Here are the sausages. The mincer was awesome both for mincing the meat and then for stuffing the meat in to the skins. The fat kind of smooches a bit more when a mincer is used to stuff the skins (we normally use a dedicated stuffer but it is hard for one person to wind the handle and deal with making sure the skin comes off smoothly round the meat so this was much more efficient). In fact we are not convinced that the sausages are any less good for the slight smearing of the fat and meat which makes for a finer grained sausage.

I also made some lamb sausages and spicy lamb kofta

Highland Coos are back home

Here they are at the farm where the bull is. The guy playing with Islay is one of the sons of the farmer and they call him a 'cow whisperer' because apparently he is very good with difficult cows.

Look at that cute little doggie, it didn't quite know what to make of giant Poppy who greeted it v enthusiastically and tried to get it to play with her. It was kind of on for the idea but also a bit worried by how mad and manic she is,

Here he is playing with Hainoa who is much shyer than Islay. Apparently she freaked out and ran away and disappeared for a while then lived on a steep slope in the woods for a fortnight. We were delighted to hear it isn't just us :)

Here is the farmer brushing Islay

He has a very nice tractor. Lots of their land is very steep, but he does have more flat land to make it worth having a tractor too.

We put some rails at the side of the trailer to help guide them in

When we took them we had a problem that they could get under the bar at the front of the trailer in to the narrow bit where we were worried they were going to stab their horns through the side of trailer. To stop this Doug made a clever device. The black bar is where they were ducking under and the panels are held in place by the shape of the trailer at the bottom and by being tied to the bar at the top. You can't really see from these pictures but it was very clever and did the job well.

Here they are being led towards the trailer. They were very good. Partially because the farmer had discovered they LOVE apples and they were happy to follow after them

Meeting up with old friends. Buttercup was very suspicious of them for a while

We had some white russians made with Buttercup milk (cream) to celebrate the coos return and how easy compared with expectations it was to get them in to the trailer

Pigs have gone to abattoir

Here they are just before heading down to the trailer.

Aww they were cute!

Doug had to get them to the abattoir between 5 and 6am (!) on Monday morning, so we loaded them up on Sunday night. They trotted in fine and we went and had some dinner before I left to go to Toulouse.
When we came out of the house so Doug could say bye bye to me as normal, we discovered that they had managed to climb over the top of the trailer and got free. So we had a super rush in the pouring rain to get the ramp bad up and get them back in - quickly so that I could leave. I managed to fall in a big slide of mud but we got them back and I left Doug fashioning a roof for the trailer to stop them leaping overboard again. I had a quick change of muddy clothes and got to the airport on time so all good!
The roof he made was good and they just went to sleep the second time they were put in the trailer, apparently it was hard to wake them up when he got them there.
I was sad to say goodbye to them on Sunday, they were very good pigs, friendly and funny. But then it was also a relief to get them down the the abattoir ok - and I am looking forward to the meat. For Doug it is going to be nice not having to feed and water them twice a day.

Doug now has the guts we asked to keep and the blood which will go in the freezer until we can pick everything else up on Friday and spend the day making pork based things as described in previous entry

I wrote on the description of what we wanted from the butcher on to this diagram. Doug went through it with the butcher this morning when he picked up the guts and blood and the butcher seemed happy with it apparently. We are hoping that this time we will get more of the fat left on the chops than before and that they will skin some of the bits we want too.

Ceiling progress

If you feel you are bored of reading about the ceiling, imagine how Doug feels having to DO the ceiling.
It is getting there. There is a coat of undercoat on some of it. This has highlighted a few bits that need more filling and sanding. But it has made the painted bit seem much more like a room and less like a mess and a building site. It seems like the end is just round the corner if not actually in sight yet.

Approaching pig slaughter date

It is getting very exciting. They go to the abattoir on Monday and we get them back Friday (18th). We are planning what we will make so we can get in supplies. We have bought a new mincer (which weighs a TON and somehow I have to get back to France on the plane). The one on the kitchen aid is good, but it just doesn't get through it fast enough, and it gets over heated with the quantity we need to do. We also have a hand one but it is FAR to much effort for this much mincing.

Current thinking is something like the following:

Head

Pork pies (boil head and extract meat add some additional pork also)

Skin (from back and belly)

Pork scratchings - salt then freeze to make later

Dry some for chews for the dog

Try Braciol?

Blood

Morcilla

Recipe from blog

Liver

Liver pâte course

Recipe from Le Charcutier Anglais

1kg pork 500g liver

Liver pâte smooth

Recipe from Le Charcutier Anglais

500g liver

250g bacon

Smooth liver pâte

150 g ghee, butter, or other fat

1 very large or 2 med (200 g) onion

2 garlic cloves

400 g liver

1 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp allspice, freshly ground

1/4 tsp pepper

2 tsp whipping cream

Back legs x 2

Dry cure one

Wet cure the other for roasting at Christmas

Back

Half boned and skinned for bacon

Half cut in to chops with bone in and fat and skin on

Belly

All boned and skinned
Half for bacon

Cure some as pancetta

Half for sausages and other cooking

Shoulder x 2 + some back and belly fat

Butcher debone and skin
Make saucisson and chorizo - needs backfat. 90% lean 10% diced backfat. 1.5% salt by weight.

Mince for sausages freeze in bags (25% fat) back fat ok if we mince fine. Belly better but want to do pancetta and other pork belly thinks

Hock

Whole for roasting. Brine first?

Trotters

Freezer for dog

We have also been trying to finish up pork odds and ends in the freezer (I suspect there are many still hiding so we will have a tidy out this weekend).

Black pudding. It was quite nice, but I don't feel I have 100% mastered it. I am going to make morcilla this time I think which we have done before and is nicely spiced with paprika

This is liver pate which doesn't look v stylish here but is tasty. Again I feel I haven't 100% mastered it though. The texture just isn't quite right though the taste is good. We still have a few of these as they are cooked and frozen in too big chunks. This time I am going to try cooking in a terrine and slicing before freezing so we can take out smaller bits at a time and hopefully that will actually mean we get through it quicker

We still have plenty of ham left (which is good as the new one will take some time to cure) and some meat for sausages as well as ribs and chops. We need to get eating!!!

Sanglier!

When Doug went up to see the pigs today there were three little piggies!
One of them was brown and hairy. A sanglier (french for wild pig). It didn't seem to scared of him apparently and seemed very friendly with our pigs. He thought it was a female.
We tried to come up with  plan how we could kill it and eat it but have failed to think of anything realistic...