We're scheduled to pick up the latest pork-fruits of our labors from Dean Street Processing on Friday 01/25, heralding in another short age of bacon! Though the bacon will go quickly, the rest of the cuts will last longer. Sausage! Bratwurst! Tenderloin! Butts! Chops! Ribs!
We still have lamb and a bit of chicken, too!
It's hard to believe it's winter when you spend the last day of deer hunting season in jeans and a t-shirt, sweating. But I assume it will actually get cold at some point and when it does, it'll be the perfect time for broth, beans and other slow-cooker culinary delights. We've got plenty of lamb bones, pork bones, pork neck bones, pig feet and maybe a pig tail or two that are perfect for the task. If I weren't so slow to mention this, the pork and lamb bones would have made you some great black eyed peas and collard greens, a favorite for half of our household. And speaking of venison, we also have pork fat perfect for grinding into sausage!
If interested, email us at triplerclayton@gmail.com
It's been almost nine months since I've posted anything here about things happening on the farm. And while there haven't been many things to mention, the ones that should be mentioned are substantial to us. The first thing worth mentioning is that we've expanded. Through things I heard on the grapevine, I found that there was an opportunity to lease some additional land nearby. The short of it is that we came to a mutually beneficial agreement and we started setting up infrastructure and making plans for growing herds and flocks. It was mostly a year of observation on the leased pasture. Rather than going ahead with expanding herds and flocks, we've been watching how the demand of the animals has compared to productivity of the pasture. So far we're excited about the potential, as the land handily out-paced the needs of the animals through the warm seasons.
The second thing to mention is that we feel like we'll be ready to build up the flocks and herds next year. More sheep. More goats. More cows. After a lot of consideration, we plan to acquire a pair of heifers or cows for the purpose of breeding. We plan to let the mamas do the work. While bottling calves is a lot of fun, it's also risky. The antibodies and colostrum passed to newborns from mothers are invaluable, and the mothers will also keep us from needing to visit daily. That's not to say it won't be work, but they'll do that important work far better than we likely can. And in the meantime, we do have a handful of calves who are growing nicely. Hopefully they will supply us until we get that ball rolling.
Lastly, we have lamb available with goat to come! Details on our lamb and flock of sheep can be found on our sheep page. Goat is a little bit off still, but shouldn't be long.
It's been a week of surprises for us. We had our first lamb born to us show up somewhere around Wednesday the 14th. I haven't made much mention of sheep so far, though we got our first two boys in the Spring of 2016. Shortly after, came our first two girls. We unfortunately lost a boys, but his brother, Chip, seemed to get over the loss when we introduced him to the girls. Because he so persistently expressed his gratitude to be with them, we were positive we would see lambs the following spring. Over the winter, the girls got noticeably fluffy and we were so confident in him that we sent him away. (Of course, he came back to us shortly after, to fulfill one last duty, for which we were very grateful.) So we scratched our heads when no lambs arrived and continued on with plans for the next time around. We picked up another ewe, who came with triplets, in April of 2017. She was purported to have delivered triplets every time, and three are hard for a single ewe to manage. So we bottled the youngest, and all did fine. When summer rolled around in 2017, we brought in another ram. He was young, but after a month or two, he matured enough to get to work. Over the past winter, the girls started looking rotund again, giving us cautious optimism, since their previous "winter weight" had fooled us.
So we were very excited when the first arrived on Wednesday, to one of Honey's triplets, followed by two more on Friday, to Rue, who is another seasoned ewe. We believe we have a few more still on the way, as Honey, our hat-tricker, just looks too big for simple over-eating. Naturally, the lambs are adorable, but ultimately they are intended to serve as a food source and it seems the long game may be working out.
We're pretty sure this isn't Rue's first time lambing. We suspect she had a rough life before coming to us. Note her left ear, where a tag clearly tore free somehow before we got her.
While the year is no longer all that new, we finally have more pork in the freezer. Our regular Clayton Farm and Community Market customers have likely noticed our absence over the last few months, judging by how excited they were when we were back on March 3rd. Our inventory had gotten fairly low in December, and it seemed our drift (that's a grouping of young pigs) seemed to be dragging their feet, developmentally. I can hardly blame them. Alas, they finally reached desirable weights and we got all five of them off to Custom Quality Packers and Dean Street Processing. With five pigs, this was our biggest order yet, which was a combination of exciting and challenging. That was a lot of pork, but I managed to get it into the freezers in the truck. I was quite glad that day for having installed a 3500W power inverter in the cab of the truck, enabling the powering of all three of those freezers; Feb 2th pushed 80 degrees, if I recall correctly.
We've learned our customers really like ground products, and with that knowledge and so much pig on the hoof, we swung the needle in favor of grinding this time. As such, we have a few new items available among the ground: mild italian sausage and kielbasas. The kielbasa we tried right away, and, as with all else Dean Street has to offer, we love it. The mild italian will likely wait until the next time we have spaghetti.
In addition to those two, we also have Pork Steaks; the Boston Butt, sliced into steaks about 1 inch thick. We learned of this cut from customers we ran into at a pig pickin' held by fellow vendor, and friends, Chickadee Farms. Life on the farm is busy, and we rarely find time to cook steaks, so those are still in the queue for us, too. However, the final new item we have are the Rib-Chops. These came about as we butchered an under-performing pig in this last drift (not to worry, it was healthy, just small and this pig's cuts aren't for sale). I drove said pig over to some friends' house (after it was dispatched and cleaned by Custom Quality) where the three of us made our way through it in the kitchen, beers in hand. It was a good experience; there's always something to learn about butchering - especially for me. At some point, the guy taking the lead held up a small section of loin, baby back and spare ribs, which, if I'm not mistaken, was something common to him growing up back in Nebraska. These cooked up fabulously in the slow-cooker, with the loin and fatty ribs all together, so I inquired with Dean Street about having them done when the rest of the drift was ready. They happily obliged, and as additional testing when the pigs were done, we all met at the same friends' house last Sunday to try them out, served up by someone much more qualified than I. As with many first tries, these came back from the butcher a bit unexpected; I failed to realize just how big these would be coming from one of our regular size pigs. So those in current inventory might be best as "event pieces"; those suited for small gatherings and they may need to have the spare ribs separated in order to fit in a slow-cooker or sous vide setup (they'll probably fit fine in a smoker or on a grill). The next time we have these made, we'll only include the loin and baby back ribs. Nonetheless, the result of the test run was 7 engorged adults, reveling in some of the best Sunday afternoon sunshine central North Carolina has to offer. See photos and captions for recipe details.
Lastly, if you haven't fallen asleep yet, we have new prices for 2018 on an adjacent page. Naturally, our new items have been added and prices on a few of our previous items have taken an obligatory bump up.
Rib-chop conception.
Smoked with coffee-pepper rub in foreground; sous vide prep in background.
Smoked, with coffee-pepper rub: apply rub generously all over pork rack. Let sit at room temp ~1 hr. Prep smoker per usual (including water bowl) and heat to 200 F. Smoke 3-4 hours. Wrap entire piece in tinfoil and return to smoker for another 2-3 hours, until internal temperature of the loin portion reaches 145 F. Remove and let sit in foil for 20 min. Get fat and happy.
Rub: 1/4 C ground coffee; 1/4 C dried ancho pepper (a bit less for hotter peppers); 1/4 C brown sugar; 2 Tbsp paprika; 1 Tbsp salt; 2 Tbsp ground cumin; 1 Tbsp ground black pepper.
Sous vide: rub with modest amount of desired seasoning (Penzey's Pork Rub & pepper pictured). Add pieces and 1-2 Tbsp olive oil, sealing with vacuum sealer or waterbath immersion. Preheat sous to 62 C (143.5 F) and add pieces. Cook 6-8 hours; remove from bags, saving juices. Sear on very hot grill to brown and crisp.
Use juices for Carolina style BBQ sauce: add cider vinegar to taste, a few shakes of Worcestershire sauce, onions, tomato paste, 1 tsp corn starch and a bit of brown sugar. Heat on stove until simmering, skimming off fat, until thickened.
Don't worry, it's not goodbye! We've had a great time at the Clayton Farm and Community Market. We're lucky to have met so many wonderful people from all kinds of backgrounds whether local, transplant, vendor, customer or passerby. The feedback on the pork and beef we've had to offer has been wonderful. As we've explained to many who have stopped by our stand at the market, we're small. Really small. As the previous post implies, it seems demand can fairly easily outpace supply. This is more critical with beef than it is with pork due to the greater demands of feed, space and time. When we started the farm, we had visions of raising our own beef, but we didn't see it happening right away. It was purely out of circumstance that we ventured into beef. An acquaintance had an Angus which birthed twins, rejecting the second born in favor of preserving the first. Since they didn't have time to dedicate to bottle raising, we assumed her and her bottling. At that time the thought of selling the meat we were raising hadn't so much as crossed our minds and we didn't even know about the Clayton Farm and Community Market. The point that I'm making in such a pedestrian manner is that this meat was originally intended for us! All of this is to say that I'm afraid we've decided that the beef we haven't sold yet is now ours. But all is not lost! We're exploring options for raising beef to butcher on a shorter rotation. Hopefully there will be more on that front to come soon, but for now, we'll focus on pork. Bon Appétit!
Those who regularly come by the stand at the Clayton Farm and Community Market probably know that some of the pork products (bacon, breakfast sausage and bratwurst) disappeared very quickly this summer, due, in equal parts, to popularity and limited availability. There's only so much bacon you can draw from a single pig. If I'm honest, though, I also have to own up to my part in it. As it was the first time we were to be offering meat for sale, I had nothing to draw from to inform my decisions on parsing out the pigs. Turns out you folks like the ground products quite a lot. As a result, we went out of bacon (not much I can do about that), bratwurst and breakfast sausage in short order. Boston Butts, pork chops and ground pork followed close behind, with hams and picnics batting clean up. So, with the next round of tree clearing, has come the next round of pigs, and the next round of your favorite parts.
This time, we've corrected (perhaps over-corrected). We're keeping the choice parts - the Saint Louis Style Ribs, the tenderloins, pork chops and bacon - but the rest we're putting through the grinder. So, behold! The return of bacon. And breakfast sausage. And bratwurst. We're also trying a couple of new things: hot breakfast sausage and jowl bacon. We'll see how those do. As it's only one pig for now, quantities are limited, so get it hot, as they say. Mark your calendars! The Clayton Farm and Community Market skips Saturday, November 11th and is back Saturday the 18th. Feel free to contact us outside of the market, though. Maybe we can make arrangements.
