Chronicles of the Long Shot Farm

Jeff’s Perfect Scrapple (Sans Mystery Meat)

For the last few weeks, Jeff has experimented with scrapple recipes.   He tried different ratios of flours (buckwheat, wheat and cornmeal), different meat combinations and finally came up with something that even Tina will eat:

Ingredients:

  1. Pork bones for stock
  2. Bouillon or seasoned chicken stock (enough for 1 gallon)
  3. 1 lbs of pork sausage
  4. 1 cup buckwheat flour
  5. 2 cups cornmeal

Prepare Pork Stock – about 1 gallon:

  • Boil pork bones in 1 gallon seasoned chicken broth (bouillon cubes/powder works)
  • Season to taste with salt and pepper
  • Strain the broth, making sure no small bones make it through the strainer
  • Depending on how much meat was on the bones, may want to save any pieces of meat in a separate bowl

Prepare Meat:

  • Brown 1 lb of pork sausage until crumbled and well cooked
  • Mix in any of the pork meat left over from making stock (if desired)
  • Run the meat and sausage mixture through a meat grinder (we use the KitchenAid attachment) or use a food processor to make sure the meat is very finely ground – almost smooth, otherwise the scrapple will have a very coarse texture

Making Scrapple:

  • Mix 1 cup buckwheat flour and 2 cups of cornmeal
  • Add the ground meat to the stock and bring back to a boil
  • Slowly start adding the flour mixture, stirring constantly – add a little at a time
  • When the mixture is thick enough that your spoon can stand in it, stir and boil for another 5-10 minutes  (not all the flour may have been used)
  • Pour the hot mixture into greased loaf pans (bread pans)
  • Let these cool completely
  • Remove the scrapple from the pans and let it dry out in the refrigerator overnight
  • Slice into 1/4 inch slices and fry until crisp – serve with syrup if desired, and fried eggs

Left-over scrapple can be wrapped in freezer paper and kept refrigerated for a week.  To freeze it, it is best to slice the scrapple and place freezer paper in-between each slice, then wrap everything in freezer paper and place in freezer.

“Orchard” Doubled in Size

Just got in from planting 16 pear trees (Anjou and Bosc).  The new fruit trees border the bottom of the mixed grape field and run nearly the entire length of that field.  Basically, we ran out of space and ended up with 3 extra trees, which were planted in pots for later. 

These were young trees, with small root systems, so we could make the holes with a rototiller and shovel.  A great way to water trees/shrubs or other larger plants is to use an old 5 gallon bucket and drill 3-4 hole close to each other on one edge, then fill the bucket 1/3 to 1/2 full of water, place it close to the tree, and let the water slowly trickle out.

The new pear trees are across the street from our other “orchard”, also made up mostly of pears, but in addition there are some peach and cherry trees.  Hope these will grow – they should all look spectacular when they bloom in the spring … in 3-4 years.!

Another Tree Bites the Dust

Jeff cut down the last of the rather invasive, pond-water-sucking, twisted willow trees today.  We hope that this is the last of it and that no more little ones will sprout on the pond edge.  It took over 2 years to clean up the bank, where the trees did quite some damage.  We  actually really like willow trees – but only a safe distance away from the water.  Last year, we planted a young weeping willow, which hopefully will grow into a graceful tree.

Routine Garden Chores Started

Blackberries are sprouting leaves and Peach trees have blossoms – and we are back in the regular garden chore mode, which is complete bliss:  Got the lawnmower and walk-behind string-trimmer out and mowed most of the house side this weekend.  Also weeded all strawberries, and started to spread mulch around them.  Cleaned up the herb garden some more.  Took a quick trip to the Newville Greenhouse and bought onions plants and new rhubarb as well.  Jeff disked the last section of the garden again and we ended up planting 260 onions (yes, I counted them… I love to count my plants).   They almost filled a complete row in the vegetable garden.

Wine Bottling

We bottled our first batch of 2012 wine:  5 gallons of Apple and 8 gallons of Chambourcin.  I have to say, the wine turned out great.  We took measurements of the pH, and SO2 levels, and we were  within the perfect range – without having to do much adjusting.  Our wines underwent “natural” cold stabilization (with other words, we left all our wine in the downstairs of our unheated stone barn), and the bottom of the carboys had a solid layer of tartrate crystals.

Tartrate crystals stuck to
 bottom of carboy

A note on “Wine Diamonds” (tartrate crystals) – tartaric acid is a normal grape acid.  Grapes also contain potassium and under chilly conditions,  these two things bind together, forming little potassium bitartrate crystals, which then settle to the bottom of the bottle. They’re completely harmless, and quite natural – but for those people who don’t know what these crystals are, they  are seen as impurities or even bits of broken glass.   Cold stabilization means that wine is “forced” to form these crystals before it is bottled.

We ran out of colored ink for our printer, so all labels this weekend were done is stark black and white decor.  We moved some of the bottles to the barn for storage – hoping the thick stone walls will keep temparatures perfect over the summer as well.