What in the world is in this cooler?? Cougar bait? Stewart's latest victim?
It's offal, the old-fashioned term for assorted animal innards. Above is the liver of a large, healthy, grass-fed cow. It weighs about 15lbs. and we have 3 of them in the freezer now.
Here is one of the 3 hearts we were given along with the livers, by a very generous co-worker. Most of the sliced, bagged & frozen goodies will be made into tasty treats for the dogs, but some will be used in top-secret liverwurst experiments like this one:
Saute in 2 T butter: 1 medium onion and 1 large or two small cloves garlic, crushed. Add 3/4 lb liver, 1/2 lb heart (you can substitute ground beef or round steak for heart) and 1/4 cup of water. Cover tightly and simmer for 25 minutes, stirring occasionally. Put this mixture in a blender and add the following: 2 T spicy brown mustard (Dijon), 1/4 t pepper, 1 t salt, 1/2 t lemon pepper, 2 hardboiled eggs, 1/2 cup plain yogurt, 1/2 t vinegar, 1/2 t sugar, 1/4 cup water. Blend till smooth, chill and serve on thinly sliced hard bread or crackers. Enjoy! Note: This liverwurst is a light brown. If you want you can substitute 1/4 cup beet juice (from fresh cooked or canned beets) for the last 1/4 cup water and the 1/2 t sugar to make the color more appealing.
Cleverly hiding from all the carnage is Magnus. Obviously, no one can see him in the special kitty toy basket!
And never one to pass up an opportunity for miscreance, Mercia decided to curl up for a nap in a mixing bowl I set down for a nanosecond.
We took advantage of the one nice day this week to get our garlic in the ground. In the PNW, mid-Oct to mid-Nov is the time to plant.
The ground is still soft and lush, and we added quite a lot of nearly finished compost to it. Garlic likes to set down roots before the weather really turns, and it's ready to start growing as soon as the days get longer in the spring.
By next July, the 329 cloves we planted will be ready for harvest. This year we're planting Chesnok Red, German Porcelain, and some generic white variety from California.
Stewart must have learned from Gemini! He's got the drive-thru window figured out.
These Sweet Dumpling delicata squash are cute AND tasty! What's not to like?
Even better with teriyaki-grilled London broil and nettle-wild mushroom brown rice. The shroom is our own Prince that we dried last year. He didn't show up this year, but hopefully he'll return soon.
This kettle of cow parts doesn't look too tasty as is, but chopped, sauteed, mixed with carrots, kale and some odds & ends from the freezer.....
.....it makes dog food! And look at our spiffy new pressure canner! An All American #921 cast aluminum and ready for battle....
The chunks of heart and liver were thawed, chopped and sauteed, then tossed into the soup kettle to stew. Then it's time to clean out the pantry and freezer - leftovers that have been left over a bit too long, cans of veggies or soup or broth that need to be rotated out of the pantry, and so on. Nothing unhealthy or inedible, but a good opportunity to use food that needs to get used sooner than later.
Each kettle full yields about 6 quarts (the big jars) or 12 pints (the little jars). You can see a bit of difference in these 2 batches, reflecting the bit of variety of goodies we found to include. It's canned up (90 minutes at 10lbs.) in the pressure canner, and the dogs love it (and so do the kitties!) mixed into their dry food, and if we were ever snowed in long enough to use up all the people-food in the house, we could even eat it too.....maybe with a nice Chianti.
And here's Magnus- alias Maggie or Magnuts. Always happy to demonstrate good kitty posture!
