We drove out to Kelso, Washington today to the butchers to pick up our meat from the half hog we ordered from Barefoot Farm and Flowers (check out their new Local Harvest page!). This is the same farm that we buy chicken eggs and holiday turkeys from, and the place where we got our half cow share in December. We have been so extraordinarily happy with everything we have brought home from their farm, and this pork is no exception.
Our half share weighed in at 94 pounds, with 10 pounds lost to trimming. So what you are looking at below is about 84 pounds of delicious pastured raised pork, straight from the farm that it was born and raised on:
We chose to have the hams, bacon and sausage cured because the place the butcher sends those cuts to cures without the use of nitrates or nitrites. I wasn't sure what to expect as far as the amount of meat or what cuts we would get, because we have never bought a pig this way before. The pork chop packages are actually double stacked in the picture above (they are the 4 packages going down the left side, plus two more in the middle) so there is really even more meat than it appears in the picture. I didn't weigh everything out, but here is a list of the packages of meat we got:
12 packs of pork chops (2 chops in each package)
1 loin roast
1 shoulder roast
6 packs of bacon and 1 pack of bacon bits and pieces
9 packages of pork steak (2 in each pack)
4 hams (about 3 pounds each)
4 pounds of ground pork
5 pounds of breakfast sausage
2 packages of spare ribs
1 package of leaf lard
We had pork chops the other night (so delicious!), and plan on going on a sausage and bacon bender this weekend when Mike and Sophia come over for brunch. One of the things I like the most about buying our meat from the farm is having a freezer full of meat to "shop" in whenever I want to. With the meat from both the cow and pig, the freezer is getting pretty darn full:
The top shelf is dog bones from 3 cows, the next shelf is all hamburger and steaks, the next shelf down is the 1/2 pig share, then another shelf of beef, a drawer full of lard and suet, then we have bacon, sausage, ground pork and chicken feet in the door. It feels really good to have a stocked freezer, and a (seemingly) endless meat supply and the best thing about shopping in my garage is that I can wear my pajamas to the "store" and nobody cares! ;)
Our half share weighed in at 94 pounds, with 10 pounds lost to trimming. So what you are looking at below is about 84 pounds of delicious pastured raised pork, straight from the farm that it was born and raised on:
We chose to have the hams, bacon and sausage cured because the place the butcher sends those cuts to cures without the use of nitrates or nitrites. I wasn't sure what to expect as far as the amount of meat or what cuts we would get, because we have never bought a pig this way before. The pork chop packages are actually double stacked in the picture above (they are the 4 packages going down the left side, plus two more in the middle) so there is really even more meat than it appears in the picture. I didn't weigh everything out, but here is a list of the packages of meat we got:
12 packs of pork chops (2 chops in each package)
1 loin roast
1 shoulder roast
6 packs of bacon and 1 pack of bacon bits and pieces
9 packages of pork steak (2 in each pack)
4 hams (about 3 pounds each)
4 pounds of ground pork
5 pounds of breakfast sausage
2 packages of spare ribs
1 package of leaf lard
We had pork chops the other night (so delicious!), and plan on going on a sausage and bacon bender this weekend when Mike and Sophia come over for brunch. One of the things I like the most about buying our meat from the farm is having a freezer full of meat to "shop" in whenever I want to. With the meat from both the cow and pig, the freezer is getting pretty darn full:
The top shelf is dog bones from 3 cows, the next shelf is all hamburger and steaks, the next shelf down is the 1/2 pig share, then another shelf of beef, a drawer full of lard and suet, then we have bacon, sausage, ground pork and chicken feet in the door. It feels really good to have a stocked freezer, and a (seemingly) endless meat supply and the best thing about shopping in my garage is that I can wear my pajamas to the "store" and nobody cares! ;)