- Jan 11, 2013
- 8
- 11
Hello!
My name is Natalie. I live on a homestead in Northern New England and I have been coming to this forum for a long time, but never joined because the search function helped me to find the kinds of discussions I was looking for and you all did most of the talking I needed! HA! It is time, however, to jump in! So. HEY!
I live with my husband and my three kids, ages 4, 3 and almost 8 months old. We have four dogs and we raise Creme D'Argent rabbits for meat and brain tanning their hides, chickens for meat, eggs and entertainment and pigs (off-site, at a homestead down the road) for meat. We live in the middle of the woods and love our country lifestyle. Miniature dexter cows and pigs on site are in our future and I can't wait to be a "real" farm! I love to can food, pickle food and cook pretty much anything. We eat a pretty traditional diet and I do some fermenting and other fun stuff like that. Cooking any and everything is my life passion.
I have a lovely cold smoker in the back yard that my husband and brother built for me:
Almost done(minus a few cosmetics):
Unfinished view from the firebox up, to give an idea of the rig:
and I have been loving every.....single....second of it. Oh my goodness, the bacon..the sea salt and smoked garlic OH it's ALL so good! I could eat maple cayenne bacon all day and all night!
What I love about my rig is that, because of the relation of the firebox to the house, I can achieve a super cold smoke or, on a warm day, even a hot smoke, by controlling the fire in the box. It's soooo nice, because I can cold smoke something for EVER (on and off for days) and then finish it with a very short amount of hot smoke and the flavors are so nice!
At this point, enough people in my community are eating and loving my bacon (and the smoking of their meats that I am doing mostly for bartering with my other homesteading friends for meat/veggies that they raise, but some people are paying cash money too) that I am going to start taking my smoked products to market some time this year. We're doing a lot of exciting things..smoked rabbit and duck sausage soon, hams, I want to try prosciutto, smoking all manner of ridiculous things...now that we've got bacon down pat, we're exploring other methods of curing, interesting blends of seasonings for bacon, etc. Life is good!
And that, my smoky friends, is the long and short of it! HELLO!
My name is Natalie. I live on a homestead in Northern New England and I have been coming to this forum for a long time, but never joined because the search function helped me to find the kinds of discussions I was looking for and you all did most of the talking I needed! HA! It is time, however, to jump in! So. HEY!
I live with my husband and my three kids, ages 4, 3 and almost 8 months old. We have four dogs and we raise Creme D'Argent rabbits for meat and brain tanning their hides, chickens for meat, eggs and entertainment and pigs (off-site, at a homestead down the road) for meat. We live in the middle of the woods and love our country lifestyle. Miniature dexter cows and pigs on site are in our future and I can't wait to be a "real" farm! I love to can food, pickle food and cook pretty much anything. We eat a pretty traditional diet and I do some fermenting and other fun stuff like that. Cooking any and everything is my life passion.
I have a lovely cold smoker in the back yard that my husband and brother built for me:
Almost done(minus a few cosmetics):
Unfinished view from the firebox up, to give an idea of the rig:
and I have been loving every.....single....second of it. Oh my goodness, the bacon..the sea salt and smoked garlic OH it's ALL so good! I could eat maple cayenne bacon all day and all night!
What I love about my rig is that, because of the relation of the firebox to the house, I can achieve a super cold smoke or, on a warm day, even a hot smoke, by controlling the fire in the box. It's soooo nice, because I can cold smoke something for EVER (on and off for days) and then finish it with a very short amount of hot smoke and the flavors are so nice!
At this point, enough people in my community are eating and loving my bacon (and the smoking of their meats that I am doing mostly for bartering with my other homesteading friends for meat/veggies that they raise, but some people are paying cash money too) that I am going to start taking my smoked products to market some time this year. We're doing a lot of exciting things..smoked rabbit and duck sausage soon, hams, I want to try prosciutto, smoking all manner of ridiculous things...now that we've got bacon down pat, we're exploring other methods of curing, interesting blends of seasonings for bacon, etc. Life is good!
And that, my smoky friends, is the long and short of it! HELLO!
