Our rams' "one bad day" (Part 3)

What started more than a year ago has now come full circle.

This weekend we watched P-E butcher our first three lambs, after they had been hung in his cooling room for a week. 

P-E in action. That saw was just shouting out "let me saw your finger off!" to me...

Although we want to be able to slaughter and butcher our own animals at some point, it is reassuring to have a professional do it for now. A professional who is also happy to share his wisdom with curious onlookers!

Homemade and home reared liver pâté 
Most amazing ever and a nice break before kicking off major freezer filler action

After spending all morning in the car and standing around watching P-E, we prepared ourselves for a long afternoon and evening in the kitchen. One would not believe how much work is involved in organizing the meat cuts from just three animals. Good thing mamma is ever the well-organized accountant! She may be bossy, but in this situation it is a relief to be bossed around. :-) So while watching P-E do his thing, we separated the main cuts into bags and labelled them, making our life a bit easier at home. 

Bag number 5 contained or roast beef for want of a better description (we're not too fussed about
correct anatomy, as long as we have an inkling of what's in the bag...)

The reward for all that work was a few odds and ends (we're saving the proper cuts for when the rest of the posse return from the UK) cooked on the wood-fired stove. I swear it was some of the best meat I have ever tasted. No bias at all. :-) 

Guaranteed grass-fed and grash finished. Ta-daaa!

Random cuts, sublime taste

Our rams 'one bad day' (Part 2)

On recommendation from Mr.B (our sheep mentor) we took our 3, six month old ram lambs to his friend P-E for their 'one bad day'. It was P-E who made the whole experience very calming with his measured approach and the careful way in which he handled our beloved ram lambs. In the end, it happened so quickly, without any panic or distress that we returned home feeling a sense of pride that we had managed the whole process from birth to slaughter for the very first time.

Our 3 ram lambs including offal

As I mentioned in the previous post, we had began our journey to a more sustainable lifestyle knowing that we would have to one day slaughter our own animals to provide us with food. Firstly, we wanted to know that the food on our plate had had a good life and had been reared properly and secondly, it had been given a natural diet i.e grass-fed. Ultimately, we wanted to know everything about the meat we were eating. So for us this was a very important stage in realizing this dream.

The 'one bad day' started with us driving the ram lambs to P-E who owns a little farm not far from ours. P-E has a professional set-up in one of his barns. and with no one else around, in tranquil surroundings, we immediately felt at home. We brought out the first ram lamb and made sure the others could not see or fear anything (they were well-stocked with good grass to munch on). P-E slaughtered the first, removed the skin, bagged the intestines and removed the internal organs. The remainder of the body was weighed and then moved into a chilling room to hang at the correct temperature. It all happened so smoothly.

The skin being removed.

We wanted to make use of the entire animal, even down to the blood that was drained into a bowl for us. And we will use everything, if not to eat, then to use as compost, or for our other animals to eat.

The remaining two rams were slaughtered at the same time, with the third one brought out directly after the second, so it was not left on its own.

Offal cuts: lung, liver, heart and kidneys

Being our first time, we were incredible nervous and wanted to make sure that our ram lambs were well looked after and they were kept as calm as possible. In essence the ram lambs' best interests were a priority for us. We feel that we achieved this and are pleased with the outcome of our first lamb slaughter.

Our rams 'one bad day'.

Tomorrow is a big day for us. After being in Sweden for just under 2 years, we will be taking three of our own lambs, ie lambs that were born and raised on our farm, to slaughter.  One of our biggest goals when deciding to leave the big city and move to the country was to try and achieve a higher level of self-sufficiency, and have greater control of where our food comes from. This is a big step towards this.

Max, our first ram lamb just a few weeks old

I am not sure how I will react tomorrow, I know that I will be sad as all of our lambs have brought us and our guests so much enjoyment. But I also know that we have given them the best life possible and have looked after them, doted on them and made sure they have had everything they needed.  A recent blog post from Ridgedale Permaculture put it nicely when they said that one of their Linderöd pigs was going to have her ’one bad day’, it will be the same for our 3 Gutefår ram lambs.

Our Gutefår flock enjoying one of our fields

This process is vitally important to us, and we bred the sheep knowing that we would one day have to do this. The sheep will provide us with food for the winter months and enable us to truly begin our journey towards a sustainable way of life.

The ram lambs today.

Our 3 pigs arrive

Last Christmas my parents kindly bought Cat and me pigs! It took 8 months for them to finally arrive on the farm, but the wait was well worth it.  They arrived today by horse box from a nearby organic farmer, who has decided to turn their focus towards their cows and horses more.

The arrival.

We have 3 cross-breed pigs, a mix between a Swedish Linderöd and an English Hampshire. The latter breed is especially hardy and known to be a good forager, perfect for beginners. We have put them to work on one of our fields that we are planning to grow vegetables and other food in next year. We really want to become as self-sufficient as possible and have realised that our raised vegetable beds in the kitchen garden are just not large enough to feed us all. The pigs will help turn the field over, fertilise the soil and make it full of goodness ready for the seedlings next spring….we hope!

Exploring their new home.

The 3 pigs, Peppa, George and Hermione-Therese, named by lil'T and our sheep mentor Mr. B and his friend, seem to have settled in well, exploring every inch of the field and finding spots to wallow in. We are supplementing their foraging with scrap food and some pig feed. This should keep them going as we head towards Autumn and then Winter.

Hmmmm mud!

They are a great addition to ever growing population on the farm and we are excited to get to know them better. Follow our updates through Instagram and Facebook on the #pppigupdate to see how the pigs do over the next few months.

Something for You, Me and the Cat

I'm making beef heart tonight. It took me pretty much TWO hours to cut up two big hearts. 

Cooking takes up a lot of time in this house, but then again, we do almost everything from scratch and it is a conscious choice we made when we moved here. 

The nice thing about cooking like this is that nothing goes to waste. Nothing. I guess that is part of the reason cooking is so time consuming. 

The meat is enough for two dinners for us. The trimmings are for the cats (they eat almost exclusively raw meat or fish). The fat is rendered to tallow, that we use for frying eggs, meat and vegetables (as I am off all dairy, this is a "necessity"). The scraps that are left after the fat - crispy brown pieces of fat - are salted and eaten like popcorn... Yum!

Dinner, cat food and tallow

Molting Sheep.

Our sheep are molting! Their woollen coats are literally falling off their backs and we are finding wool strewn across the fields, caught on shrubs, rocks and laying on the grass. Our Gutefår sheep are a primitive breed native to Sweden and are well known to shed their fleece in the summer months, there are not many breeds that do.

New look Rambo!

Our Ram seems to have shed the most, with only a little bit of fleece covering his rear. He looks pretty trim now and his horns look even bigger. The ewes with the darker fleeces, seem to be losing more than those with the lighter fleeces. It is amazing to see how dark their wool is close to the skin and you can see why all of our lambs have a black wool. The ewes do have a very scraggy look about them, so I am sure they will be pleased to get a good shearing!

A scraggy looking Babs and Deidre.

Our sheep mentor, Bengt, is supposed to popping by any day now to shear them, but I am not sure he will have much to do. We will just keep gathering the wool up from the field, until he comes!

Heart in a Jar

In preparation for more caveman coffee breaks, we're working on perfecting the beef heart jerky recipe (the paleo balls need no improving, they're a bit too perfect, in fact, nom nom nom).

The result of last night's experiment turned out really well, I am happy to report.

No, these are not turds in a jar.

For a jar of crispy-chewy jerky, I used the following:

450 g beef heart from a grassfed cow (Rödkulla from Lindegrens to be precise, name of cow unknown, however)
2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons applecider vinegar
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1/2 thumb of ginger, finely chopped
Black pepper to taste

Day 1

• Trim the heart (be sure to remove all fat, especially) and cut into big chunks that will allow you to cut very thin slices. 
• Freeze for an hour.
• Cut thin slices with a very sharp knife (or with one of those electrical thingies that slice veeeery thinly).
• Put the slices in a bowl with the rest of the ingredients, cover and refrigerate for 24 hours.
• Stir occasionally.

Day 2

• "Hang" the slices on a wire rack and place in the oven at 65 degrees. Keep the oven door slightly ajar with a wooden spoon or similar. 
• When the pieces start to shrink and dry up (usually around 2 hours depending on thickness), dislodge them from the rack and put them on a normal baking tray, occasionally stirring them to make sure they dry evenly. 
• Really thinly sliced jerky should be dry enough at the 3 hour mark, but depending on how thickly you sliced them, it can take longer. Aim for chewy rather than completely crisp. 
• Store in an airtight container, preferrably in a dark place. The fridge is NOT the right place, as the meat will attract moisture. 

Enjoy!

Welcome Sheep

On Monday, we welcomed our first four-legged guests to Kannesten. A friendly neighbour is lending us seven rams for a few weeks in order to eat some of our now very plentiful grass. We are treating it as 'try before you buy' and we were all smitten as soon as they moved in. It is a great feeling seeing the sheep munch in our field. It is as if they simply belong there and the field didn't have a purpose before they arrived. Very deep, I know.

We are now more convinced than ever before that we need some sheep for our land. There are so many benefits:

1. They eat the grass and shrubs in the field. As a result we don't need to spend hours with the scythe. There are more than enough areas where we can do our core exercises with the scythe.
2. They poop, i.e. they fertilise the fields. We may even collect some to feed our vegetables, which feed us. I love the biodynamic thing!
3. They make you happy by just looking at them. Hours can be spent watching them graze.
4. They have lambs, which are even cuter.
5. Their meat is tasty. 
6. The wool is beautiful.

I can't wait until we have some of our own! Meanwhile, I will enjoy looking at the seven handsome rams.

Meat on a Budget / Budgetkött

Dinner was a bit unconventional today: beef tongue. We're constantly on the lookout for cheap cuts of meat and tongue is up there with heart and liver. The flavour is reminiscent of salt beef, consistency slightly more compact. 

Leave the handling to the less squeamish family members

The recipe went something like this (my friend Anna kindly provided the base :-)):

1.3 kg beef tongue (from a grass fed, happy cow)

20-30 black peppercorns

10 bay leaves 

2-3 tablespoons of salt

Sliced carrots, onions, garlic and fresh ginger (this is where I went off on a tangent...)

Cold water to cover the tongue

Add the tongue and spices to a sauce pan, cover with water. Bring to a boil. Let simmer for 2 hours, occasionally turning the tongue if it is not wholly covered. Let cool until you can handle it with your hands and take off the skin. You may have to use a sharp knife. Cut the tongue in half (one half being the tip of the tongue). Put the two pieces in a clean sauce pan and cover with the strained fluid, plus 3 more tablespoons of salt. Let rest for 2-3 days in a cool place, preferably longer.

Slice the bigger piece thinly and serve with mash and a spicy mustard or garlic mayonnaise. 

In this format it is easier to pretend it's just salt beef

Chop the tip of the tongue into small pieces to add to soup, broth, omelette, etc (it is slightly tougher). 

Next time I think we'll try to cure the tongue for a week before boiling, to make saltier. 

***PÅ SVENSKA***

Idag blev det tunga till middag. Kändes sådär lagom udda, och gott! Vi letar ständigt efter mer förmånliga köttdetaljer och tunga är ungefär i samma prisklass som lever och hjärta. Smakar ungefär som rostbiff/ salt beef, med lite mer tuggmotstånd. 

Receptet jag använde löd på ett ungefär så här (baserat på min vän Annas recept):

1,3 kg nöttunga (helst från en glad och gräsbetande kossa)

20-30 pepparkorn

10 lagerblad

2-3 msk salt

Skivad morot, lök, vitlök och färsk ingefära (här började jag visst bli lite extra kreativ, förlåt Anna...)

Kallt vatten för att täcka tungan

Lägg tunga och övriga ingredienser i en kastrull, täck med vatten. Koka långsamt i två timmar, vänd tungan då och då. Låt tungan svalna på skärbräda tills du kan dra av/ skära av skinnet. Dela på mitten i en tjock och en tunn del (tungspetsen). Lägg bitarna i en ren kastrull och slå över det silade spadet plus 3 ytterligare matskedar med salt. Låt stå svalt i 2-3 dagar, gärna längre. 

Skiva den större biten i tunna skivor och servera med rotmos och en stark senaps-/vitlöksmajonnäs. 

Hacka tungspetsen i små små bitar och ät i soppa, buljong, omelett, osv. 

Nästa gång tror jag vi testar ett tvärtomrecept och rimmar köttet i en vecka innan vi kokar det, för att få en saltare smak. 

Tallow Time/ Talgtider

It was Cat that first came up with the idea of making something out of all the hard fat on the beef hearts that we now eat at least a few times a month. I believe she got it from Mark's Daily Apple, but reading his recipe now, it just seems overly complicated, so check out our below. 

Why use tallow? It is incredibly heat resistant. It will keep for ages in room temperature. It is mainly healthy saturated fat, meaning that it won't contribute to inflammation in your body (especially if you make it from grassfed beef). And last but not least, rendering tallow is a logical step to take if you eat meat, ie to use the rest of the animal in any way you can. 

• Buy some grassfed beef fat, the hard kind - ask your butcher for it or use the stuff that you find around the heart or kidneys, if so inclined - we bought 650 g this time around

• Cut it into small pieces, place it in a pan, aiming for a layer of max 4-5 cm
• Turn on the lowest heat possible, do NOT be tempted to increase the heat
• Wait 
• Wait some more, stir occasionally, check in on it every ten minutes or so
• Start pouring off the liquid tallow into glass jars
• Season the leftover "beef scratchings" with salt and eat with a spoon, yum!

**********SVENSKA**********SVENSKA**********SVENSKA**********

Det var Cattis som kom på den briljanta idén att göra talg av allt fett från de kohjärtan som vi äter några gånger i månaden. Jag gissar att ursprungsreceptet kom från Mark's Daily Apple, men när jag läser hans recept nu så verkar det lite väl komplicerat, så här kommer vårt egna:

Varför ska man då göra och använda talg? Därför att det är otroligt värmetåligt. Och hållbart. Och bidrar inte till inflammationer tack vare den höga halten mättat fett (det härsknar varken i skåpet eller i din kropp). Dessutom är det ett logiskt steg att ta om man äter kött, dvs att ta tillvara på hela djuret. 

• Köp helst gräsbetat nötfett, så hårt som möjligt - be slaktaren om det eller karva bort det hårda fettet kring t ex hjärta och njurar - vi köpte ca 650 g den här gången 
• Skär fettet i småbitar, lägg i kastrull, sikta på ett lager på ca 4-5 cm
• Sätt på spisen på det allra lägsta, och då menar jag verkligen det ALLRA lägsta
• Vänta
• Vänta lite till, rör runt ibland, kolla läget var tionde minut eller så
• Börja hälla av den flytande talgen i glasburkar
• När krafset som är kvar på botten blir brunt och lite knaprigt, ta av från spisen och salta och ät som fläsksvål (låt inte svalna för mycket dock, för då är det INTE så kul)