Smokin!

Look at this lovely playground for meat-lovers! There is a firepit, big enough to enjoy sitting around and roasting a few hotdogs or marshmallows over. But this firepit has a higher purpose....a conduit from the left side channels the smoke to a tower-shaped smokehouse, and residual heat also fires the bake oven behind the black metal door. The whole thing is completed by a nice wood storage area, and topped by a handy and handsome work surface. This looks like it took a lot of time, and involves masonry skills we at Seven Trees haven't perfected yet. So we're looking at simpler smokehouse designs to keep us busy until we can build one like this.
The basic principal of cold-smoking (hot-smoking involves direct heat and higher temperatures) is to generate smoke far enough away from the food being smoked that it flavors the meat without cooking it. Moving the smoke from fire to smokehouse is usually managed by making the fire lower than the smoker and having an opening at the top to draw air. A smoker can be as simple as a metal drum with top & bottom removed, a covered trench in the ground, and a campfire.
Why smoke food? Here's the opinion of one aficionado:

Smoking offers many improvements for meat. Besides enhancing the taste and look, it also increases its longevity, and helps preserve the meat by slowing down the spoilage of fat and growth of bacteria. Smoking meat longer leads to more water loss, and results in a saltier and drier product, which naturally increases its shelf life. Man discovered that in addition to salting and curing meat with nitrates, smoking was a very effective tool in preserving meats..
The advantages of smoking meat are numerous. Smoking:
Kills certain bacteria and slows down the growth of others
Prevents fats from developing a rancid taste
Extends shelf life of the product
Improves the taste and flavor
Changes the color; they shine and simply look better
Smoked fish develops a beautiful golden color. The meat on the outside becomes a light brown, red, or almost black depending on the type of wood used, heating temperatures, and total time smoking. Originally, curing and smoking was used solely for preservation purposes; today it’s done for the love of its flavor.

For a more technical treatise on the art of smoked meatses, check out this online publication Curing and Smoking Meats for Home Food Preservation
from National Center for Home Food, University of Georgia.
Here's an above-ground, all-metal smokehouse set up. There are lots of pictures and inspiration at this website, including a a smoker made from a trench and tree stump that has been in use for 20 years.

Here's the one we're thinking about building. You can see the designers took the easy way out and built theirs to use a propane burner as the "fire".

But the size and shape of it, not to mention easy construction, make it a winner. It will be simple to add whatever height "foundation" we need to get the right angle for channeling smoke, but we need to decide just where it will go so we can build a new firepit in the right place.

Here's the smokehouse in action. Reason enough to get a weaner pig next spring! The plans for this smoker, plus pictures, instructions, ideas, recipes, etc. are here - Build Your Own Smokehouse courtesy of the
Connecticut State Department of Agriculture.

Until we get our own smokehouse though, we'll keep enjoying the tasty efforts of our favorite butcher, Silvana Meats. If you're in the area, definitely stop in and peruse their wares. So far everything we've tried has been wonderful (they also do the slaughter/butcher for Hemlock Highlands).

Of vacation, good neighbors, and bull...

We both took a few days off of varying lengths in order to catch up a bit on spring chores. Didn't really go any where, but we had a few fun evenings watching DVD's and got some things done.

We went ahead with the purchase of two cord of wood from our regular wood guy Neal. With the price of oil going up, up, and up; it seemed the prudent course. We had at least a cord left and some other we scrounged. Add it up and it is more than enough for next winter. We intend to hook up with a neighbor for further wood scrounging though, as he knows where there are a few folk that'll let you have it for the getting rid of some down trees. Sweet. We just have to stack it the wood now... in our spare time!

As you can see above RdoubleD Nash Rambler arrived. It took Stella about 20 minutes of sniffing before she was out licking and bathing him. I guess you could say she's easy, but it's been a long time since she's had "company".

We managed to make some delicious meals as well when we were off. One is this Hemlock Highlands, sirloin tip roast beef baked with a fresh herb rub, ceasar salad, and roasted vegtables. It was simply put, divine.

And this is our long awaited steamed pumpkin pudding! Thanks to a friend we now have a pudding steamer, so we gave it a try and it turned out wonderful. J made a vanilla custard sauce as topping... magnifique!

Our neighbor Chad owns Brisky Built, Inc., and as you can see from above, they do remodels, but also specialize in restoration. Being as our house was born in 1920, we have some areas that can be challenging to fix up to us lay-carpenter types. We wanted a new front door, but there was too much dry rot around the old one for us to feel comfortable doing ourselves, so we called Chad. This is what he does best!


Here he is tweaking the door so it fits just right. This is after he rehabbed the door frame, which he made look quite easy. It was a challenge though as while surrounding areas had been fixed previously, around the door had been left to grow worse and worse. He essentially removed all the rotten wood, and rehabed a part of the house wall as well as door frame.

Here it is shut as the job got closer to completion. When we get the trim painted, we'll post a final shot of the exterior with hardware and new trim on.

And here it is on the inside now with new hardware, also easily handled by Chad. He had to chisel out an area and do a couple other adjustments so the hardware we'd chosen would fit correctly. One of those things that would have taken us several hours that he did in less than one. If you live in Whatcom county or vacinity and need any remodeling/restoration work done, Brisky Built is absolutely the one to call!

While Chad easily handled the door, I set fence posts for the last bit of perimeter fencing that remained to be finished. The job is about done now, but again you'll have to stay tuned for those shots. One blog post can only reveal so much. While I fenced, J mowed the grass, which seems to grow about 6 inches a day owing to the rain.

And while on any vacation a certain amount of time must be spent bonding with Magnus, our cat who thinks he's a person, to include sitting like one. Here he is mirroring me. Pardon my cheesy smile... the cat is the real star. We don't call him "Ham Cat" for nothing!

J has managed two successful milkings since bully-boy arrived, keeping us in plenty milk. one was 1.5 quarts, the other this AM gave us 2 quarts. Although Stella spends the duration trying to peek over the half stall wall at her beau, like some moon-eyed teenager the duration. Ain't love grand!