A Very AIP Christmas (and New Year)

The first morning I was home, I had a simple breakfast of bacon and kale:

I realized there was no fat for me to eat, other than coconut oil, so I made a whole pound of bacon for that fat, and I took my first stab at making lard.

The verdict is........ well, it took me two hours to chop all that up, and even then it probably wasn't as small as it should be. The food processor looked like it was going to explode when I tried that, so I had to do it by hand. I probably ended up with about 3 c. of lard, much less than I was expecting. Sure, it tasted good and I was able to not burn any of it. But until I get a meat grinder or something, I don't think my frozen pork fat is going anywhere. 

For Christmas Eve dinner with family friends, I made three recipes. The first as a simple pot roast, the second was a parsnip and white and yellow carrot mash (a big hit with many non-paleo folk, also included lard and broth), and the third was a new liver pate recipe: blueberry balsamic liver pate, except I used half chicken and half duck liver. I doubled it, and was left with almost twice as much blueberry topping as I wanted but I thought it turned out really well. The two other liver-lovers at dinner weren't thrilled with it. I think they prefer it more savory. But for me, as much as I love savory liver pate when it's fresh and warm, I really don't like it cold as leftovers the next day. But this recipe I'm enjoying eating days later and luckily I have a lot leftover.

For Christmas Day...

One little boy was very happy to have his own stocking

We started with an apple and fennel soup

The main course consisted of...

A beet and orange salad (I had to use regular oranges)

 Cauliflower and leek stuffing (so good, it felt just like grits)

Roasted brussel sprouts in bacon fat

 And a fresh ham (from my pig share) with apple sauce

I followed TPM's recipe, with some snafus in cooking times (I think I tried to stuff too much in the pan) plus I stuck in a lot of whole cloves

The night finished with another round of this pumpkin pie, this time with a little less gelatin. It turned out much better than last time and is shaping up to be a go-to recipe. 

As for New Year's Eve, I put some GT's kombucha in my champagne glass and snacked on caviar-topped cucumbers and then polished it off with some more pumpkin pie. It was later than some of us had stayed up in a while...

We (I) added another four-legged addition to our family. This is my first experience with a shepherd and he's shaping up to be a doozy :) 

The Great Headcheese Experiment

I ordered a pig head from some purveyors at my local farmers' market back in the summer to be ready sometime in October. My wonderful mother picked it up and put it in our freezer for me while I was at school. I didn't have time to deal with it over Thanksgiving, but I got around to it over winter break.

Here it is defrosted

My sous chefs

First I rinsed it off in the sink. Not much can gross me out, but I was a little perturbed by some chewed up food in its mouth. Plus, while I know they are very happy, pastured pigs, I'm not too sure what's in their supplemental grain.... or how far down the alimentary canal it had gone while the pig was alive. It also had a fair amount of hair still on it. 

So I put it in a big pot and boiled it with peppercorns, salt, and a few bay leaves for several hours, until it was very easy to extract all the bones (and teeth). 

I had two recipes to choose from: one from the pork bible, Beyond Bacon, and another from a cookbook called Odd Bits, by Jennifer McLagan.  I decided to go with the Beyond Bacon recipe, because it was simpler. Also, the end result looked more like meatloaf, as opposed to meat and vegetable chunk jello. Sounds so appealing when I say it like that...

I have to say, I could've done with some more direction in the recipe. For example, it said to put the meat in the food processor. Well, this head had way more fat than meat on it. But it never said to do anything with the fat or skin, whether to add it to the meat or discard it. So I put it all in. Except most of the skin, which still had a lot of hair on it. If I were to do this again, I'd maybe see if I could get it de-haird a bit better. 

The end result were two pretty fatty loaves. I think the Beyond Bacon recipe only ended up one loaf, so either this was a bigger head, or the fat wasn't supposed to go in (at least not as much... which is more likely). 

It's..... fine. I left one loaf back at home (which probably won't get finished) and brought one back to school with me. With some extra salt and lots of garlic sauerkraut on top, it's not so bad. I've had it for breakfast the last few days. But it's not disappearing as fast as I'd like. I know it's good for me and all, but I may be sharing the rest with the dog. 

Just in time to start the head for second semester