Beef Jerky Making - Nose To Tail Eating

I have been meaning to post about this for a few months as we actually did this back in May and finally I am getting around to posting about it.

One of the great things about having lots of beef is that you can make things that you other wise wouldn't due to the cost.  We had out butcher put an entire Topside aside for Hubby to make Jerky or Biltong.  It weighed 9.5 kg which is a huge piece of meat to most people but you need to start with a lot as the meat shrinks as it dries out.  We borrowed a few books from the library and did some research online about making jerky but since it is not something I am a fan of and being pregnant am not allowed to eat it anyway I left it to Hubby to make what ever he wanted.

He decided on 3 different flavours made with a wet marinade, Mango, Orange and Kung Pow, which were all loaded with Trinidad Scorpion chillies.
After trimming and portioning out the meat the marinades were made and the meat was sealed in bags with each of the different marinades and left for 48 hours.

After 2 days of soaking the meat was dried in the oven on a low temperature.  I do own a dehydrator but was concerned that it I put the jerky through it would forever be tainted with chilli and pass that flavour on to everything I dehydrate in the future.

Hubby wanted his beef to be more like Biltong than Jerky meaning that the meat is not dried all the way through and is still a bit soft in the middle.

Once the meat had reached the desired moisture level Hubby sliced it and vacuum sealed it in portions.  We probably could have stored it like that at room temperature but we opted to keep it in the freezer just in case.

We took a whole lot of it away with us on our month long trip down south and there is still a little left but Hubby has been enjoying it as an after work snack and on weekends so I suspect it will soon all be gone.  He will now have to wait until we are in New Zealand to make more.

Do you make jerky or biltong?

Final Soap Making Session

As we get closer to moving to New Zealand and out of our rental property we are in the process of using things up.  Because we will be moving in with family we are running down things like cleaning supplies and food.
We are able to take food with us when we move with in with family but we still don't want to overload them or leave them with things they will not use.
I still had a whole lot of tallow left (about 4 kg) in the freezer and because we cannot take tallow to NZ and we were not likely to use it up cooking (we do not use vegetable oil we use tallow instead) I used it all up making soap.
I posted back here the recipe I use which uses 1.5 kg of tallow to make the amount of soap shown in the photo below.  I made 2 batches that were pure tallow and as I did not have quite enough for a third batch I used 250 gm coconut oil and 250 gm olive oil to top up the 1 kg of tallow I had left.  To make sure I had my ratios right which is very important as different oils have different properties when it comes to making soap so I checked the ratios of each oil in this soap calculator.

I was also able to use up most of my essential oils making 1 batch with sandalwood, 1 batch with ylang ylang and 1 batch with patchouli.
As you can imagine that I now have a lot of soap curing but the good news is it will all be cured before the international movers come and pack everything so each batch will be packed into a shoe box and be sent off to NZ with our belongings.
It will probably keep us in soap for a long time to come but that is ok as we will not be rearing a cow for beef straight away and then once we do rear one it obviously needs more than a year to grow before we butcher it.
For us rendering the fat from an animal we have raised and butchered just makes sense as we pay for the entire weight of the animal including the fat so why just throw it away when we can save ourselves the cost of buying soap for the next few years and it uses up what would otherwise just be a waste product.
Tallow also makes a wonderful soap that is very gentle on your skin.  You should be able to get your local butcher to bag up fresh fat scraps for you that you can render down and turn into soap and even if you had to pay for it (some butchers might give it away) I am sure it would be really cheap.

My friend Liz recently posted about making tallow soap on the blog Lovely Greens so if you want a bit more info pop over and have a read.

What kind of soap do you make?

A Baby Shower Of Sorts

On Sunday we enjoyed the company of some of our family, friends and work colleagues as we celebrated the up coming arrival of our first baby "Peanut".
We didn't want to do a female only event with games and silliness instead we just wanted to have people over for lunch and a catch up so it was a good excuse.

Here are a few snaps from the day.

Meeting the new bub

Lucky we had the Gazebo for extra shade as it was quite warm.

I tried to get all the news from the town where we used to live

The kids enjoyed the park across the road

Jessie got lot of attention

Our nephew max posed with us for a photo

Catching up with work mates

Friends from Kilcoy (where we used to live) who I did a lot of community work with 

Friends of our Farmer Liz and Farmer Pete

Work Mates

Work Mates

The kids keeping Jessie entrtained

Catching up on news

With Hubby's parents

We had great weather and it was lovely to see every one.  We also got to meet one of my work mates new baby and catch up with friends who live outside of Brisbane.

Here And Now September

I am joining in with Say Little Hen' s September link up.

Loving // The support of my husband as we await the arrival of our first baby. He has really picked up the slack I have left in my less energetic state.

Eating // Left overs from our baby shower, raw carrot dip, coriander pesto, veggie sticks, spinach and feta pastries.

Drinking // Sir John Tea from The Tea Centre which has this lovely smokey flavour and is very refreshing.

Feeling // Excited and anxious as my due date draws closer and a whole lot of rib kicking.

Making // Thank you cards to send to our friends and family who attended our baby shower.

Thinking // About how I can use up all the different foods in our pantry.

Dreaming // Of the strangest things - a side effect of pregnancy

How about you?

Just a couple of interesting things I found on the web the past week.

Interested in a weekend of traditional crafts (leather craft, blacksmithing, natural dyes, rope making) nature skills this looks like a great event and makes me wish I lived closer although with Peanut due in 3 weeks I am not sure I would have made it this year.

This short clip of a family who live off grid in Canada caught my eye.

This article is a little concerning to say the least but I am not really surprised.

And this is a new to me blog I am enjoying reading.

Hope your week is off to a great start.