Traditional Hog Processing Workshop

 

 

 

 

Of interest to farmers, chefs and homesteaders, this three part workshop will highlight traditional hog processing techniques familiar to farmers generations ago, but lost to many of us in these modern times.

 

Dates for the workshop are:

December 10^th, slaughter and processing, 9 – 4, in Dublin NH at Dancing Dog Farm.

December 18^th, butchery, 9 – 4,  in Salisbury, NH at Henwyn Farm and

December 20^th,  curing and preserving, in Dublin once again at Dancing Dog Farm.

 

Workshop Fee is $150 for all three days, or $60 per day. Workshop participants will be actively involved in all three days.

 

Contact Carol Lake, Dancing Dog Farm, 603.563-8122 or email at carol@dancingdogfarm.com

 

Humane Slaughter & Processing

Students will learn how to slaughter pigs humanely, with elegance and utility. Edward Epsen  of Henwynn Farm will demonstrate specialized organ extraction, blood harvest, and preservation of the extreme parts to maximize value. Ed uses the technique of scalding and scraping so that you get a carcass with skin on. Other custom cutters will skin the animal, losing much of the value in the process. In addition to the overall loss of edible skin and hyperdermic fat, you would lose the value of the fatback, the head (including the jowls), and the feet.

 

 

Traditional Butchery

On Butchery day workshop participants will learn how to break down a whole side of pork into primal and secondary cuts with nothing more than four hand tools. This also increases the value of your cuts because they are made cleanly with a knife, which reduces oxidation and nutrient loss. Our approach will emphasize porcine physiology, identifying different muscular, skeletal, and connective tissue groups. You will learn how to render the carcass into an assortment of cuts that are most useful for your kitchen, how to minimize bone dust, oxidation, and waste, and how to wrap meat for maximum storage life in the freezer. Finally, we wrap the meat using clinging plastic and butcher paper, not vacuum-sealed packs, which can lose their seal when handled or shifted around in the freezer.

Preserving Pork without Refrigeration

For the third session we will cover a combination of curing, cooking, and sausage making. Students will learn the traditional art of preserving pork without refrigeration, which generally involves three categories of technique: wet-curing, dry-curing, and confitting. Possible special topics and fees include the following.

Fromage de tete (head cheese)
Black pudding / blood sausage
Pate de campagne (rustic pork liver pate)
Rillette (a kind of pulled pork confit that will last indefinitely in the fridge or cellar)
Fresh linked sausages

Things we start together and you finish:

Dry Curing

Guanciale
Pancetta
Prosciutto

Wet Curing

 

 

Dancing Dog Farm is a family homestead farm in Dublin NH that emphasizes biodynamic agriculture and permaculture.  Henwyn Farm is a small-scale certified natural farm featuring rare heritage breed hogs raised on pasture and woodland, located in the Merrimack Valley of central New Hampshire.

 

 

Bring A Cheesemaking Class to Your Office (or farm, or party, or…anywhere)!

Say Cheese!

Beginner Soft Cheese Making Workshop, suitable for 6 – 10 participants. 3 Hours in length. All supplies included.

Combine kitchen science with Yankee ingenuity and what do you get? Am empowering, tasty recipe for success (and fun) That’s what!

Bring your team together to learn the simple, super cool (and yummy!) science of soft cheese making. We’ll bring all the supplies to make Chevre, Fromage Blanc, Labneh, Ricotta, Lemon cheese and Queso Blanco, even Mozzarella!  Following an interactive discussion, participants will dive in and learn ingredient selection, proper stirring and draining techniques, temperature controls, culture and salt selection, which seasonings work well for each cheese, and best of all, TASTE all the cheeses!

The group will end up with 1/2 pound each of Chevre, Ricotta, Lemon cheese, Queso blanco, Labneh and a pound of Mozzarella to divide how they see fit at the end of class (if there’s any left at the end of the class!) All supplies are provided with the class fee.

**You Need*  A room to hold the class in (does not need to be large, a break room is often fine) running (potable) water, and, preferably, a stove top. Contact us for more information and details.

Our cheesemaking classes made Ricki Carol’s “Moosletter” !

We were excited to see our thank you letter featured in New England Cheese Making Supply’s “Moosletter” !

Our classes are held twice a month, and are about three hours long (though we usually go a smidge over!)  Our fee is $45, all supplies are included. We suggest you bring paper and pen, cus there will be lots to write down! We do have animals here (cats, a dog, goats, pony, chickens, geese, etc.) so do let us know if you have an allergy and we will do our best to prevent said allergen from interrupting the class. At this point in time we can’t allow small children (we are a working farm, and some things around here are just not quite suitable for little ones) or other pets to join you in your class.

We *do* however, offer a 10% discount to more than one participant.

We are considering adding several more classes, as they’ve been far more popular than we imagined (which is a good thing!). We’ve also had requests for an intermediate cheese making class, and a hard cheese making class. We’ll see if we can make that happen later in the year.

Here’s our advertisement in this month’s Monadnock Table magazine!

2012 Beginner soft cheesemaking classes

Join us at our new farm in Dublin, NH for our popular beginner soft cheesemaking classses!

At our hands on Soft Cheesemaking Workshop, you will learn to make plain and seasoned chevre, frommage blanc, lemon cheese, panir, yogurt cheese (labneh),  queso blanco and mozzerella, all of which can be easily replicated in your own home kitchen with simple supplies you may already have!  After you taste your first batch of fresh cheese, you’ll never feel the same way about store-bought. We use both goat and cow’s milk to make our cheeses, you’ll even have some to take home with you! Classes run approximately 3 hours, choose  from one of the dates below.

 

 

Jan. 18th  9:30 – 12:30

Feb. 24th 1 – 4

Feb. 15th  9:30 – 12:30

March 24th    1 – 3

March 14th  9:30 – 12:30

April 7, 9:30 – 12:30

April 18, 1 – 4

May 12, 9:30 – 12:30

May 16, 1 – 4

Cheesemaking Class at Sunflowers Cafe in Jaffrey!

We are taking our beginner soft cheesemaking class on the road! Carolyn Edwards, owner of Sunflowers Restaurant/Cafe in Jaffrey, has asked me to present a class on Tuesday evening, March 20, from 6pm to 9pm at their lovely restaurant on Main Street. Join us!  http://www.sunflowerscatering.com/classes.html

 

	21 Main Street, Jaffrey, NH 03452 · Get Directions
Phone	(603)593-3303
Website	http://www.sunflowerscatering.com

Cheesemaking Classes make Great Gift Certificates!

Winter 2011/2012 Soft Cheesemaking Classes

Join us at our new farm in Dublin, NH for our popular beginner soft cheesemaking classses!

At our hands on Soft Cheesemaking Workshop, you will learn to make plain and seasoned chevre, lemon cheese, panir, yogurt cheese (labneh) and yogurt, all of which can be easily replicated in your own home kitchen. After you taste your first batch of fresh cheese, you’ll never feel the same way about store-bought. We use both goat and cow’s mil to make our cheeses, you’ll even have some to take home with you!

Jan. 14  1 – 4

Jan. 18th  9:30 – 12:30

Feb. 11th 1 – 4

Feb. 15th  9:30 – 12:30

March 17th    1 – 4

March 12th  9:30 – 12:30

Winter 2011/2012 Soft Cheesemaking Classes

Join us at our new farm in Dublin, NH for our popular beginner soft cheesemaking classses!

At our hands on Soft Cheesemaking Workshop, you will learn to make plain and seasoned chevre, frommage blanc, lemon cheese, panir, yogurt cheese (labneh),  queso blanco and mozzerella, all of which can be easily replicated in your own home kitchen with simple supplies you may already have!  After you taste your first batch of fresh cheese, you’ll never feel the same way about store-bought. We use both goat and cow’s milk to make our cheeses, you’ll even have some to take home with you! Classes run approximately 3 hours, choose  from one of the dates below.

Dec. 10th  from 1- 3

Dec. 13th  9:30 – 12:30

Jan. 14  1 – 3

Jan. 18th  9:30 – 12:30

Feb. 24th 1 – 4

Feb. 15th  9:30 – 12:30

March 24th    1 – 3

March 14th  9:30 – 12:30

July farming classes!

Grow Your Own! 

Backyard Organic Gardening Classes at 

Dancing Dog Farm, the week of July 7 – 14, 2011

To register, email: carol@dancingdogfarm.com or call 603.289-2426

The Backyard Organic Chicken Flock –  Meat & Eggs on the Table       

July 7, 9am – 11am; fee: $20
Simple ways to add home raised organic eggs and poultry to your backyard – everything from choosing the right breed, to raising chicks, to feeding and managing layers and meat birds.

Backyard Barnyard – Easy Ways to Integrate Small Livestock into Your Backyard Farm                  July 8, 9 am – 11am; fee: $20                                                                                                                                                        Learn how to increase the biodiversity of your backyard by adding small livestock – chickens, bees, even dairy or meat goats are easy to raise and add to your food freedom! 

The Homestead Dairy – Raising Goats is Easier than you Think!

7/14; 9am – 11am; fee: $20
This class is a great introduction to raising backyard organic goats for milk, cheese, or meat. Covers breeds, diseases, feeding, care and housing, milking and processing. Hands on with our dairy goats.

Composting, Vermiculture (worms!) & Compost Tea                             

  7/16, 9am – 12pm; 9am – 12 pm; fee: $35
Using your own home-made organic compost is the single best thing you can do to increase your garden’s fertility, ward off pests, and keep diseases at a minimum. Come to Dancing Dog Farm and learn how to properly build a worm bin, compost tea brewer and a thermal compost pile.

We are an official WWOOF host farm!

Image via Wikipedia

I’m very excited to announce that we have finally become a host farm for WWOOF! What’s WWOOF you say? WWOOF is  ”world wide opportunities on organic farms“

here’s our profile! 

One-half day of volunteer help is traded for food and accommodation, with no money exchanged.  The WWOOF-USA Host Farm Directory lists more than one-thousand organic farms (not necessarily USDA certified organic) and gardens across the country.  The Host Farm profile contains information about the location, general responsibilities,  and lifestyle of the host.  Any farm, community, or garden project in the US that is willing to host and accommodate volunteers can participate in our program.  We encourage all types of volunteers and hosts who can cooperate to strengthen sustainable agriculture worldwide to be a part of WWOOF-USA.  The program is open to anyone 18 years of age or older, regardless of experience.

WWOOF farms offer a variety of educational opportunities, including growing vegetables, keeping bees, building straw bale houses, working with animals, making wine, and much more. With over a thousand farms in all 50 states, the US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, there is something for everyone.

Here’s the WWOOF link

Some of the things that  we do here (or are planning on ) at Dancing Dog Farm that would include WWOOFers are:

Small goat dairy

Cheese/yogurt/’kefir making (small scale)

Treatment-free apiary (small scale)

Pastured Poultry  brroding, pasture management, slaughter, rules and regs, marketing

Laying hens

Compost – bokashi, thermal,bokashi,O2, compost tea

Soil food web/microbiolgy (with microscope work)

organic fruit

organic vegetables

biochar

hugel kulture

solar applications

hoophouse construction

Food preservation

electric fencing

Farming classes

Strawbale shed

bread oven

small grains

farm dog training

marketing – social media, website, hard copy collateral

Monadnock Winter Farmers Market

monadnock winter farmers market

Peter and I had a great *first time* experience at the Monadnock Winter Farmers Market, at Noone Falls in Peterborough, NH, last Sunday. Thank you to all the good folks who bought our honey! We’ll have lots more next Sunday, and although we aren’t yet legally allowed to physically sell our milk at the market, we will have information about both the fresh cow and goat’s milk that you can buy at the farm, as well as information about our new “dairy share” program.

See you at the market!