Daily Archives: January 10, 2012
Some cute kitties
Mrs J came back from her stint at the shelter today with this photo of some new arrivals. Seems a young lady brought them in after being told by her landlord, in no uncertain terms, that she could not keep them. Details are hazy but it would seem that they were abandoned near her apartment. Poor dear was in tears that she had to turn them over, but they have a nice place now and they will surely place soon.
St. Francis Community Animal Rescue & Education (CARE)
Bonus wildlife pic of the day:
Ambrosia Honey
One of the first things a naturopathic practitioner recommends if you have pollen allergies is add local honey to your diet. The idea being that it introduces allergens over time and your body develops antibodies. My pollen allergies are mild, which I find fortunate, but I still buy local honey and whether it helps or not, it’s good stuff. Buying it locally is kind of fun, especially during farmer’s market season, when I can meet a lot of the local beekeepers. And year round I can stop near by at a historical farm/museum that sells honey made by their many bees. And usually get a good look at one of the bee boxes – they love showing off their bees.
Honey flavor varies from colony to colony and it seems to depend on where and in what the bees play. Today I was at a local store that sells bulk honey and I decided to pick some up. The flavor that looked really good was the Ambrosia Honey from Madhava. It has been a while since I’d purchased it and I had forgotten how good it was. Or maybe this harvest was especially sweet. They say it’s wild flower honey and I have to believe it, because most honeys I’ve had are clover and none are as sweet or mild. I practically licked the bulk container clean after I transferred it to my “honey jar”.
Madhava is a local beekeeping farm that is the champagne of honeys locally. They’ve been around for decades. I met the owner and founder once and he regaled me with stories and the history of the business. It sounds like it was basically a commune in the 70′s and has since turned into a profitable, nationally known company. It still has that ‘hippie’ feel to the place in the front, but it’s all business in the back. Fun to visit.
So I guess this is my pitch to remember to buy locally when you can. I love not only supporting my local beekeepers, but meeting them, too.
Slow roasted picnic ham
I had to go into town yesterday and I used the opportunity to cruise the relatively well stocked supermarket in the next town over. I was pushing the cart down the meat department aisle and did a double take when I saw this fresh picnic ham on offer for less than two dollars a pound.
I poked several cloves of garlic into the thing, rubbed in salt and pepper, and set it into a slow oven for the rest of the day with the temperature set for 220 or so. I ran the probe from my handy dandy oven thermometer into the general area of the roasting pan without sticking it into the meat – I wanted to see how the thermostat in the oven handled the low setting. There were some wide swings throughout the run but I tweaked the knob until the average was about where I wanted it. The temps swung from 195 to 245 as the element cycled on and off. Next time I may place the big pizza stone I have as a moderating thermal mass. Couldn’t hurt.
Anyway, the ham spent about ten hours in there and I was wanting to finish it up before it got too late so I did insert the probe to see what the temp was inside the roast. It was showing 165 degrees and I called that done enough. It would have been fine for another few hours.
It was getting pretty late but I went ahead and reduced the roast to rubble and packed the meat away into the fridge for the night. Most of it, anyway.
This morning I finished tearing the meat into shreds. I put the bones to good use, toasted them in the oven along with some others that we were saving and then made some more stock.
This evening Mrs J was ready to try some of the pork so we had a wonderful dinner of it along with some shoestring fries.
The giardiniera works great on these.
TaMara
jeffreyww
LFern7
indylib
