Makin Bakin.. or Bacon.....

Sorry for my absence the last couple of days - and no camera - please dont punish me by not coming over anymore! I have been busy with butchering our 2 pigs. I am hopeful that I will be getting a camera tommorow - dont hate me if I dont - so I can take PICTURES!!!! ya know those things I have been promising for the last week or more! So instead of giving you pictures, I am going to tell you about our pigs - Fred and Ethal..... they were good pigs..... They are going to be even better meals. Talk about beautiful pork, they are some of the nicest meat pigs we have ever had. They were a york/tamworth cross wich is very hard to find because Tamworth pigs are getting to be more rare all the time. They are a bacon pig because they have an extra rib, so I am told, and are VERY long in the belly were bacon comes from. I am curing 1/4 of a belly today, but without a camera I can't show you how it is done. I wont explain right now, because I am going to show you in steps how I do this, with PICTURES!!! HOORAY!!!

But first I want to ask if anyone is really interested in knowing this? Otherwise I will just show how to make hay for my first picture post? My goal here is to keep people interested and informed not bored so that they go looking else where and leave me like yesterdays stale bread ok!!! LOL If you would be so kind as to leave a comment about how you want/want not to hear about making bacon at home I would be more than happy to post either way!!

SO - in the mean time I am also rendering lard. I know it sounds gross, but it is gold for cooking and baking I swear it. I will show/explain how I do that if you want me too. I use it for making bread, popping popcorn, frying anything and everything - that is only if I am not on a butter binge... I like butter - I lust for butter almost as much as I do for the Milk Man.... ok, not that much but its a close one. I am a firm believer in natural fat is better than ANY OTHER SUBSTITUTE. God gave us butter and lard, so our body knows what to do with it. Margarine is 1 molocule away from being plastic, tell me how that is good for you? I love to cook and bake so I take the time to make lard because if its good lard you have a gold mine of flavor there. Have any of you ever used the 'store bought' lard? That is SO gross... sorry to all of you who may use it or like it. Most of it has a very 'piggy' smell/taste to it. What I mean by that is that most of your store lard comes from old, over fat pigs that are cull pigs, not raised for market but for breeding. They are usually old or crabby so they are culled out of a herd and sent to market. People really dont realize what they are eating at times. These pigs have bred or been breed so the hormones have went through the body and in a way 'tainted' the meat. If you have ever eaten a frozen pizza that had a funny smell to it, the peperoni on it was probably 'boary', thats my own word. It just tastes like a pig smells, ish.... Man, this is lengthy... sorry... but I have to keep going, I have a purpose to teach you not to eat boary meat!! LOL The pigs that we eat are NEVER bred nor do they breed. The boys are castraited, remember the word barrow and the girls are never bred, remember the word gilt - same thing as virgin - oops did I just say that, sorry cover your childrens eyes, or tell them I was refering to olive oil...... SO, do any of you fine friends of mine have hang-ups like I do about the food you eat, where it comes from, the processing of it, lack of flavor etc? I am curious to find out if I am the only food freak around these here parts? Ya'll got yer work cut out for you now dont you!

Baby update I have 10 days till the baby gets here - I dont count the day I am in or the day I deliver..... panic has started to set in... help me.......