Bacon Success

A very enjoyable cooked breakfast! The sausages were excellent, and the bacon has worked well. It's a bit too salty, though, so in future it'll want to be soaked briefly, I think. As expected from slicing it, it's not a particularly pink bacon, but it tastes the part. Next time, I might adjust the cure recipe, to have a bit more sugar, and a bit more saltpetre. I might also try a wet cure. Still, that's six months off.

In other news, I've finished putting up the cupboards in the utility room, and also installed a worktop under them/over the washing machine. It's looking really smart, and the cupboards are invaluable. The walls need painting, and the curtains need changing, but it's getting there!

The gap in the kitchen units (where the dishwasher used to live, and which was a hole under the worktop) has now also been filled, with three Contiboard shelves, which looks much neater, and is a useful space. We've also recently put up two long shelves in the workshop, above the big freezer, which has immediately been filled with ring-binders from our degrees. Still, it's better than having them in boxes in the garage, which was their previous residence.

Last two jobs of the weekend have been putting an extra foot of insulation in the loft over our bedroom. As I said in December, the existing insulation was ancient and thin, so this was an ideal way to improve things. It took six big rolls (and, actually, I need another half-roll), but was quite straightforward. The other two lofts (above the two bathrooms, and above the two guest/spare rooms) still need doing, which means getting another 10/11 rolls sometime...it's a slow process, as we can only fit a couple in the car at any time. Still, we'll try to get two tomorrow, as there's a B&Q trip planned. The other job was putting up a rail of coat hooks in the cloakroom, and taking out the sideboard that had been left there. That's now at the foot of the bed (an experiment), and the cloakroom's looking much better.

Busy weekend? Yes.

Bacon & Hams Ready

Well, I've just finished the bacon and ham curing. The bacon's been rubbed with dry cure every evening, and I've stirred and turned the hams in their brine most days, and today they were -- hopefully -- finished. I've washed the bacon, and sliced it into rashers (about 50-odd), and then cut the scrappy bits up for other cooking. The colour's not as pink as shop-bought bacon, probably because there was less preservative: not necessarily a bad thing. I'm planning a cooked breakfast tomorrow, and then a boiled ham on Monday, so we'll be able to try out the results.

A Weekend of Pork

Yesterday, we collected our half pig, which had been raised by a friend, slaughtered last Monday, and butchered this week. We'd specified our butchery requests, and it was ready on Saturday. The half carcase went into a number of components:

• 96 sausages (from the trimmings)
• 1 fillet
• 3 shoulder joints
• 2 belly joints
• 8 chops
• 1 loin joint
• 2 belly cuts
• 4 leg joints
• liver and kidney

We froze the bulk of it, with the exception of six sausages (for Saturday's dinner), and the belly and leg. The belly is destined for streaky bacon, and the leg for boiling/baking hams. Today, I've mixed up a dry cure for the bacon, rubbed it in, and put it in the spare fridge in a big Tupperware. Then we made a simple wet cure brine for the hams, weighted them down (another sealed Tupperware filled with water), and put them in a big bucket, also in the fridge. The value of keeping the spare fridge is suddenly deeply evident. The rest of the meat has gone into the chest freezer, and there's still plenty of space!

We decided to stick with a basic bacon cure: next time I might play with some flavourings. Ultimately, I'd like to build a smoker, and smoke some/all of the bacon, but that's a little way off yet. As for the hams' brine, it's also a simple one: again, next time I might try some beer, treacle, vinegar, apple juice, or spices. We'll see: I didn't want to overcomplicate our first go.

They'll be ready next weekend: the bacon will need draining, and more cure rubbing in every evening, and then we'll rinse, slice and freeze it. The hams should also be done on Saturday, and we'll freeze three, and try the fourth.

Reports on our success will follow...the sausages were extremely good, so we're working from good raw materials: any fault will, sadly, be our own.

New Pages!

I'd been hoping for a development like this, and it has come to pass. Blogger now has undated/not-blog pages, for extended about me info, or other things. I've used this to create a recipes page (also linked to the right), which I'll try to add to. There will, no doubt, be other ones over time --- I have a plan for a garden design one, for instance.

Pottering

It's a bit cold outside, and Liz is working, so I've had a fun day pottering. I've put up two new lights above the cooker, which is in an alcove, and rather dark: the existing light gave up about three months ago, but I've only just got the new one in. I've done some laundry in the new and exciting washing machine (hoorah!). I've installed the doorbells: cunningly, both buttons (on top and bottom front doors) can communicate with the single chime (in the middle of the house), but each one can trigger a different melody: excellent for knowing which door to go to. I've chopped some kindling, and tidied up the sitting room fireplace, which has needed some attention. And had general pottering fun. Time to settle down soon, and contemplate dinner.

A Day of Timber Construction

No, not the raised beds. Yet.

Instead, the near-to-overflowing state of our green compost bin meant that we had to get round to building a compost bin. I found an unwanted pallet some time ago, and broke it down into planks. Using some old fence posts (3 inch, yard long) as the verticals, we've made some sides using the pallet planks. Not high enough, really, but they will be once I find another pallet. It will, however, allow us to decant the council compost bin, which will be good. I just need to dig out some carpet to go on top, and I might also line the inside with plastic, to keep it warmer and a bit drier.

Secondly, we put back together the corner arbour. It went quite nicely in the corner of our last (micro) garden; it's now, in fact, back in the corner of this one, although it has rather more to look out at. The surroundings are still a complete mess (it's next to a pile of branches that need to be chipped), but it was getting a bit damp and unhappy sitting in an unassembled pile, so it's better to have it upright.

Slowly, slowly, getting things done. The complete lack of time during the week---and, for that matter, light---is frustrating, but there you have it.