Cheese Making

Now I have the milking machine up and running, I have plenty of milk, gained far quicker and more easily.  What had been taking me at least half an hour now takes approximately 15 minutes including the time spent moving Brownie in and out of the shed and cleaning the milking machine.

Brownie on the milking machine

While we're still not getting lots, we're getting excess to our milk drinking requirements.  I have enough left over that I have been experimenting with different cheeses.

I currently have two Gouda cheeses maturing, a Cheddar drying before waxing and Minas in the fridge.  I also have a complete failure of two Camembert wheels.  They won't be wasted, they may be hard as wood, but will still double for Parmesan in most things.

Two waxed Goudas maturing

Farmhouse Cheddar drying

The Minas Cheese came as a request from a workmate of Hubby's.  She's Brazilian and finds it hard to find Minas in NZ and had been missing it greatly.  She raves over just how yummy it is.

I went searching for recipes.  I found plenty of history on the Minas cheesemaking region in Brazil.  I found discussion on the composition (in chemical terms) of Minas and how it's texture differs from other cheeses.  I found recipes in Portugese with no translation.  I really struggled to find a recipe.

The workmate offered to translate recipes into English for me and also said she'd ring her Sister-in-law in Brazil and get her recipe because the SIL has a small farm and makes her own.  Then I found a blog with a video of someone making Minas.  Every so often, the video stops and there are instructions in English come up as text, so I copied it down and then made it into more readable English.

I reduced the volume by 80% and made Minas cheese.  It's a fresh cheese, rather roughly handled throughout (which surprised me) and is simple to make.  I sent a small wheel into work with Hubby the next day and waited for the response. 

About halfway through the day, I decided to try some.  I found it bland and almost tasteless although the silky texture was nice.  By the time Hubby got home, I was convinced I'd made the wrong thing.  This couldn't possibly be the same cheese she'd been describing as SO yummy.

I said as much to Hubby.  He raised an eyebrow and then showed me the text message he'd just received.  It was the workmate gushing gratitude and exclaiming over how yummy my Minas was.  I wondered if perhaps there was something wrong with my palate and so I cut a slice for Hubby.  He frowned and said the same as I had, but different cultures and different tastes and all that.

Anyway, here is the recipe I used.  The original called for 18 litres of whole milk to make 3 1kg cheeses.  I've reduced it somewhat.

Minas Cheese

3.6 litres whole milk
2 ml rennet
30g salt

If it is cold weather, have 1 l boiled water ready for when you break the paste.

Add rennet to milk and stir it well.  (The original called for a wooden spoon that is only used for making Minas).

Add salt and mix well.

Cover and leave for 2 hours.

Break up to separate curds and whey.  There was no mention of any size cubes to be cut, just break it up.  This is where you can add the boiled water which can also make a firmer cheese.  Strain out the curds and press (with hands) into cheese molds.  Press it down firmly to remove as much whey as possible.

After about half an hour, flip the cheese mold over and repeat after another half hour.

Winter Veges

Over Spring and Summer our vege garden was a waste of time this year.  It seems we can't keep the chooks contained and so everything I planted was eaten down and then dug up as they scratched the soil over.

Added to the drought and the well where our irrigation comes from running dry, veges were a write off.  Well, except for potatoes, we did okay out of spuds.  I grew them in tyres filled with chicken poo and pig poo.  I'd definitely recommend growing them in tyres to anyone.

Since we couldn't seem to keep the chooks in where they were supposed to be, we thought we should try keeping them out of where they shouldn't be.

In desperation, I found some bird netting that we'd had lying around the place and rounded up Hubby to help me put it up around one vege patch.  The bird netting  was the type used in vineyards and given the bits of vineyard paraphernalia we find around here, I'm only surprised that there was one piece of about 10m long.

First patch of vege garden

We planted out some more seedlings of winter veges - broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower and brussels sprouts and waited with trepidation to see if the chooks would beat this too.

They didn't and the veges are growing well.  So Hubby went looking on Trade Me for more bird netting.  He found a vineyard selling it's old netting 75m for $20.  The auction stated that it had some rather large holes in it, but as we didn't have a large garden to go around, holes were minor and could be fixed or patched as needed.

When he went to pick it up, the guy couldn't find a 75m roll and didn't have a lot of time to spare so he gave him a 150m roll for that $20.

We've now netted the next patch of vege garden - this one was bigger and didn't have any walls or trellis to fix it to on any sides like the first one, so we put up vertical posts in the corners and strung some plastic cord (another thing we seem to have bags full of that was left behind) and curtain hooks hold the netting up to the cord nicely.

Second patch with added posts etc

Curtain hooks holding up the netting

Curtain hooks also work to close up holes.

This patch has now got broccoli, cauliflower, celery and spring onions growing and room for more.  I've had to explain to Hubby that we don't want to start too much all at once and successive plantings are better, even with winter veges.

Let's hope this all works now and we can get some veges of our own!

Fresh Milk

 Since we first bought our little block, even before we'd moved here, one of our big goals was to have a housecow.

Milking a cow and making our own dairy products would reduce our weekly grocery bill by about a quarter, so it was always a huge part of the plan.

Brownie at four weeks old.

I'd hoped to milk my Dexters when I got them, I knew they were at least a year away from breeding, and most of a year after that before they were able to be milked so it was never a short term thing.  For all my hard work trying to tame them though, they never got to be friendly enough that it was going to be an option with the facilities I had available.

I hand-raised Brownie from four weeks old, she's a lovely jersey fresian cross.  I always planned to milk her and made a point of staying friendly enough to be able to pat her and have both of us comfortable around each other.

Two weeks ago, she had her calf.  He's been nick-named "Handsome".  He's just lovely with a chocolately brown colour to his coat and the big soft jersey eyes and long eyelashes.

Handsome at a couple of days old.

He seems to be just as friendly as his Mum too.  We never take anything for granted where he's concerned - I've heard too many stories of people being mauled by their housecows for getting between them and their calves, but he's come up to me at the gate and she's been quite unconcerned about us patting him and now that I'm milking her, he quite often comes around the side with me and curls up where she can see him.  When he's not coming up to me to see what I'm doing that is.

I first tried milking her about three days after he was born.  She kicked the bucket and I think it spooked her a little.  I couldn't get near her the next day and the day after that, her behaviour was quite hostile - ears flat and throwing her head around.

Hubby built a rough temporary bail to my specifications and I tried to entice her in with some hay.  We're very dry this year and her paddock, while it still has plenty of grass in it, it's mostly brown and dry.  The sneaky girl was going up the rough old sheep race next to the bail and eating it through the railings.  So I put a load further up the race and she walked in quite calmly.  I blocked her in with a length of wood and tied her leg loosely with a bungy cord.  I couldn't fit the bucket under her because of the railings, so after washing her teats, I tipped out the remainder of the water from the coffee mug I'd carried it out in and milked into that through the railings and tipped it into the buckets.

We didn't last long before she'd had enough and wanted out.  I got about 400ml of colostrum.  But it was a start at a time when I was worried that it wasn't going to happen.  My family were a bit disturbed by the very yellow cream and slightly pink tinge to the milk part.

I found some recipes for colostrum pudding, also known as Beestings pudding and Abrystir - an Icelandic dish.  But I didn't end up making them.  I never quite got the quantity to try it.  But I did make a cheese sauce with the colostrum which went down a treat with my son.

Since then, I've cut a board out of that part of the race and it's working.  She decided she didn't like the wood blocking her in and backed out rather quickly before I got it all the way across one day - nearly crushing my hand between this piece of 4 x 2 and the top railing.  The next day, every time I picked up the wood, she'd back out and eyeball me until I put it down.  Then she'd walk back in, I picked it up again and she backed out again.  So I milked her without the leg tie or wood.

Brownie in the race.

Brownie now.

It was the most successful milking I'd had so far.  So we came to an agreement, I wouldn't use it and she gave me no reason to need it.  I have had her knock the bucket over and on one occasion lift her foot and put it squarely in the bucket, but since then, she makes it clear that she will be moving before she actually moves.  She gives me enough time to shift the bucket, even lifting her foot quite slowly.

About a litre of milk in the bucket.

My best milking this week has been two litres.  From all accounts, that's quite good given that I'm sharing her with her calf and he's only two weeks old.

Now she comes and pointedly looks over the gate to see if I'm coming out yet with her hay.

I have bought a milking machine.  It is a very old piece of equipment and Dad is working on getting it going.  We have parts at the platers to be replated, a new motor and I'm saving madly for a test bucket and new hoses and cup liners.  We are still planning a milking shed to run it in too.  I'm hoping I'm not milking by hand for too much longer, but I'm getting used to it.

Milk heating to pasteurise.

Hubby is a little paranoid about raw milk, so I'm pasteurising it.  It's actually a really simple process.  Heat the milk in the top of a double boiler to 72 degrees Celsius, keep it there for 30 seconds and then cool it to 4 degrees C.  The double boiler is really important - I tried it without one night and scorched the bottom, even though it didn't go over temperature, it still scorched a little.

I'm skimming the cream and making butter with it.  Butter is also extremely easy.  Whip up the cream until it separates into butter and buttermilk.  Press out the rest of the buttermilk, wash the butter and you're done.  I've been mixing it up with rice bran oil to make it spreadable without changing the taste too much.

When I've built up a big enough store of spreadable butter, I'll move on to ice cream.

The family are getting used to our own milk and butter.  I think they're all proud that we're doing it, or rather that I'm doing it and they're all cheering me on.  Hubby needs to learn before I go away for a week at Easter though.

Apologies and Updates

When I started this blog, I made a commitment to myself that I'd write at least three posts a week.  

At first that seemed easy.  I was doing lots of things and had plenty to relate.  Then it started to seem that I wasn't doing anything new and any blog posts would be repetition and redundancies.

But there are always new things I'm learning and constant new experiences.  I've got plenty of patterns and craft ideas going all the time and I'm always finding new ways to preserve food or new ways to cook with it.

I have some new adventures underway and some new experiences to share and mistakes I've made that someone else may avoid after hearing of mine.

Homekill Meat

We had our last Angus steer homekilled.  He was getting to be a bit stroppy and dangerous to be around.  As I'm on my own and on foot most of the time when I'm shifting my cattle, I can't be afraid to be in the same paddock as them.  The odd bit of high spirits when the cows are on heat is different, I know what to expect and that they're going to be behaving in a silly manner.  But a big steer charging at me and throwing his head around is different.  He did stop, back off and settle when I stared him down and I was able to leave the paddock without showing any fear.  Although as soon as that gate was closed, my knees started trembling and the adrenalin rush almost knocked me over.

So it was time for him to go.  More Steak and Kidney pies made.  More suet for the chooks and rendered for cooking.  More dog food and no spare space in the freezer.

At the same time, I had three pigs slaughtered.  One was for a friend.  She went with the cattlebeast to a butcher for processing.  I did the butchering of the other two pigs myself.  This was achieved with the help of youtube.  George, my old boar became mostly ham and bacon.  Stefano my younger boar became a whole range of different cuts.  We had a George ham for Christmas lunch and it went down a treat - everyone loved it.

I ran out of time and room in the fridge for all the stuff I was doing so half a bucket of pork shoulder and all the pork liver ended up buried in the vege garden.

Animals

The awesome neighbour came and tailed our lambs for us.  While he was at it, he gave them a jab for tetanus and pulpy kidney.  The shearer came out one evening and dagged/crutched all five lambs and completely sheared (shore?) the two ewes.  This year, after all the grass seed and dried poo mixed in with last year's fleece, I decided to lay down a tarp for him to shear them on.  It's made cleaning them up much easier.

I'm finally finished washing all my fleece, but I'm still carding and spinning last years wool.  I'm keeping it separated from this years.  Partly because I want to see if the quality changes, or if there are any things I need to be conscious of.

Then I was given nine fleeces of varied colours.  Some black, some grey and some brown.  I foresee some fun times with that.

I've just had three new calves arrive.  Two heifers and one bull calf.  The bull calf is the only one that I really wanted to be a girl.  His Mum is a Jersey Fresian cross and his Dad is a Dexter.  Two out of three of those breeds are known to produce difficult and stroppy boys.

I've been starting to milk Brownie - my Jersey Fresian cow and mother of my handsome bull calf.  This has been met with mixed success and today, nearly a broken hand.  I'm being as gentle as I can, it's new for both of us and I don't want to frighten her away from it.

I've had six broody hens - including one shaver.  It's been a couple of months with no signs of any chicks, so last time three of them were off their nests I took all of their eggs and broke them to check for chicks.  Not even the slightest sign of anything at all.  I'm starting to wonder if 50 hens is too much for one rooster, but getting another rooster proved to be a bad idea last time.  Our next idea is to make a chicken tractor and put the meat breed hens and the rooster in that together.

The Vege Garden

This year the garden has been a dismal flop.  Either the chooks or the piglets which kept getting out ate everything down to ground level or dug it up.  Then the weather turned stinking hot and dry.  The lawn is brown and crunchy, the paddocks are brown and crunchy and it's near impossible to keep any moisture around my plants.

I've had a small handful of cherry tomatoes, a few beans and one zucchini.  I haven't tried the potatoes yet, but the ones in tyres seem to be doing well - they've got huge plants on them at least.

Other Bits and Pieces

We've had to replace so many ballcocks in water troughs this year.  Mostly because the pigs keep getting at them and ripping the brass arm off at the split pin.  You can't fix that, it needs to be replaced.  We've looked at a float system and covering the ballcock altogether, but both have their own issues.

We've begun a process of staking down the bottoms of fences.  The sheep have been pretty hard on them and at one stage roamed freely between four or five paddocks.  The one we've completed (and that was a lot of hard work) seems to have kept most of them contained for now.  Although one lamb can squeeze under the gate and is still roaming.  We're planning to hang a fence post on the bottom of the gate and hope that she's not strong enough to push it out of the way.

I bought a floor loom.  I was chatting to a chap at a craft expo who is in the Spinners and Weavers Guild.  We were talking about looms and I commented that I'd really love one, but can't afford to buy one.  He told me that many people are now giving them away.  It seems that most people just don't have the room for one anymore and they're not selling.  I got mine through him from a lovely elderly couple for just $75.  I was embarrassed that this was all I was able to offer them, but after chatting with them for an hour or so, they were happy it was going somewhere it was going to be used and cared for.

I've put the loom together and made a test piece.  Most of the time involved in weaving is in the set up.  I'm going for a full width piece now, because it's me and I never do things by halves.  I've spent days getting about two thirds of the way across.  By this, I mean just stringing up the long threads that go from back to front.  I'm not up with the terminology yet, so I can't tell you if this is warp or weft or if there is another name again for it.

I've been recommended for some work later on in the year.  As an Artificial Insemination tech.  The tech mostly does the logistics, preparation and documentation for the person who does the actual AI.  I'm keen to give it a go.  The experience, the contacts and certainly the money will all be helpful.

Right now, I'm trying to go back to my plan of at least three blog posts each week.  Miss Nine is back at school and I have that little bit more free time and ability to concentrate without a dozen questions every ten minutes, or telling me about what she's been doing in Minecraft or the Summer holiday "I'm bored" nagging.

Preserving Eggs

I found myself with more eggs than I could reasonably use.  These weren't our eggs from my girls, Hubby sells them at his work.  These were from my work.

I gave some away, I made pavlova and Bacon and Egg Pie.

Because the hens go off the lay for winter, I thought it would be nice to have some put away that I don't have to buy for those months.  I make jokes about my hens being free-loaders and I know that it doesn't help that most of my birds are older.  I'm working on that.  I have some new hens of different breeds, one of the girls came to me with the story about how she usually raises 4 clutches of chicks each year so I'm living in hope.  The barred rocks are supposed to be great mothers too.

I decided to try drying some.  This is something I've seen mentioned in various homesteading and self-sufficiency websites.  I found a recipe and instructions and gave it a go.

I beat up six eggs and that was all that would fit in my plastic tray for my dehydrator.  I thought I might try lining others with baking paper, but my baking paper wasn't quite wide enough and I didn't want to be cleaning egg off everything.

The page I was going off said to use your fruit and vegetable setting - about 135 degrees.  So I thought I might dry some in the oven too.  I've used my oven to dry other things and it's worked reasonably well before.

I'm rather disappointed in myself for the stupid rookie mistake I made with this.  I know that most recipes I find online are in Fahrenheit and I always make the effort to double check temperatures and convert to Celsius.  Well, except for this time.  I cooked the eggs in the oven.  They went rubbery and looked rather disgusting on the whole.  My pigs didn't mind the addition to their diet though.

Cooked eggs from the oven "drying" failure.

The ones from the dehydrator seemed to work.  I've put them through the food processor like the instructions said to powder them, but they didn't break down to powder, more like crumbs.  I think that may be because it's a big food processor and not a lot of dried egg.  I spent a little time grinding it up in a mortar and pestle, but sore arms came rather quickly from that.  I'm currently drying more and I think I'll process them all together in one bigger amount.

Dried Eggs from the dehydrator.

As an experiment, I tried reconstituting some of the egg as per these instructions.  It said 2 tablespoons of egg powder to 1 tablespoon of warm water.  Stir and leave for 5 minutes.  This is supposed to be equivalent to 1 egg. NOPE.  That wasn't right.  I think it's the other way around.  1 - 1 1/2 tablespoons of powder to twice the volume of warm water.  I say 1 - 1 1/2 because from six eggs I got approximately 9 tablespoons of powder.  I played with it a bit and got what looked a little like beaten egg after a while.

I posted about this on facebook and got a lot more suggestions.  One friend said she freezes them in ice cube trays and then pops them out into zip lock bags and keeps them in the freezer.  I looked at my ice cube trays (that come with F&P freezers) and thought that one cube would barely fit the yolk so instead I froze a dozen eggs in a muffin tray.  The problem came from trying to pop them out.  They were stuck!  I had to partially thaw them so they came out easily and then put them back into the freezer.  We'll see how well that works out at a later date.

Eggs in muffin tray for freezing.

Other suggestions that I haven't yet tried are isinglass and pickling.  I will look into them at a later date. 

Spring has Sprung!

Well, Spring is certainly here going by all the new arrivals we've managed to get in the last week.

I'd heard that one of the women I work with was giving away lambs.  So I spoke to her and on Tuesday last week, I picked up two one week old orphan lambs.  Roastie and Lucy.  I spent a small fortune on Milk Replacement Powder and understand completely why she's given them away.  

Roastie (bottom) and Lucy (top)

Miss Eight is determined to keep Lucy as a pet and as she's apparently from very good breeding stock, there's no harm in that.  Roastie however, well, his name should tell you what his end shall be.  Even though he's lovely and has brown markings that look like he's fallen over in mud.

Mildred, my Kune kune sow dropped a litter of five piglets over the weekend.  Three boys and two girls.  They seem to be doing well and I think she's a good Mum.  Poor George isn't quite sure why he's suddenly on his own and is rather lonely.  When we're in his paddock, he spends all his time at our heels wanting attention and a scratch.

Mildred with her five little ones.

This morning, I noticed two new lambs bouncing around the paddock by the house.  Nibbles has finally dropped her two.  I got as close as I could without alarming her.  They weren't fully dry yet, I'm unable to tell what genders we have at this stage but they're bouncing around with plenty of energy so I figure they're healthy.

Nibbles with her lambs - the second one is by her head.

We still don't know and can't tell if Sheepy is pregnant (in lamb?).  We can't get close enough to see if an udder is forming.  We weren't sure if she would as she is just a hogget, although a large one.  We left her in with the ram with the theory that if she did, then she did.  If she didn't, then that was fine too.

The cows aren't due to calve until around Christmas.  I know it's rather late, but that was when we were able to get a bull and that's what we had to work with.  They're all showing signs of getting big and Brownie, the only one who hadn't previously had a calf, is getting an udder.  Eddie's udder never shrunk much after Ron was weaned so that wasn't much help but she's getting wide.

Update - several hours later.

It would seem that Nibbles hadn't finished when I saw her with her lambs this morning.  We have triplets!

Nibbles with THREE babies, and Sheepy looking on.

Homekill Steers

I said in my previous Sausage Making post that I'd be writing heaps about what I've done with our steer, and then proved myself a complete liar by not (yet) writing another word.

I'm not quite sure where to start with this.

It is my belief that I owe it to my animals to be present for their slaughter.  I know a lot of people will not get this, they will look at me sideways and think I'm a bit odd.  It's okay, I'm used to that.  I am quite content with "a bit odd".

I had started to write a bit more in here, but it needed to be split into another post. See here for my little rant that started from this point and how disconnected society is from their food.

Anyway, I do feel that I should be present for the slaughter of my animals for meat.  I have been responsible for their care and well-being, I have raised them and given them the best that I possibly can.  Now they'll be dying so that I can continue to eat and provide food for my family.  It's a mark of respect and honouring their contribution to my freezer.

I made Hubby and Miss Eight watch Lamb Chop's slaughter last year.  I think it's important for them to see the change from living breathing animal to meat.  I don't want my children to grow up being unaware and disconnected from their food.

The homekill man came out and did one steer at a time.  One of them was for a friend.  We've been grazing a cattle beast for him and when he asked how much he should pay us, I suggested that when he gets his one slaughtered and butchered, he do ours at the same time.

Having learned from last time, I asked for the offal before he'd even taken a shot.  I had bowls and buckets ready for liver, heart and kidneys.  It turned out that I also needed a wheelbarrow.  I'd asked (half as a joke) about keeping the skin for tanning.  Hubby had been in touch with his step-father about the tripes.  His step-father adores tripe and onions as much as Hubby still finds the memory of eating them to be traumatising.

There was a lot that I hadn't thought of though that normally seems to go for offal.  "Cheeks and tongue?" Bishop (the homekill man) said to me very early on.  I took the cheeks.  I'd never had them, but I'd seen them used and raved over on a tv cooking show.  I wasn't quite brave enough for the tongue (not for eating anyway) and so with equal parts gratitude and disgust, Clegg (the friend who'd bought all of the people concerned with these cattlebeasts together) took both.

I used the cheeks for the steak in steak, kidney and mushroom pies that I made for Hubby.  The mushrooms were also grown here.  Both Hubby and Miss Eight have raved over these fantastic pies and that the cheeks were perfect in them.

The tail was the next thing to be offered to me.  I've never eaten oxtail anything before.  For all my father was a farm boy, we never got offal at home.  I decided to give it a go and was given both of them, with the 'skirt' that he cut off from the inside of the beast then and there and a few cooking instructions.  Never put brassicas in an oxtail stew they all said.  I've also since been told by an Irish woman that dumplings are mandatory with this dish.

Now that I have cooked an oxtail stew, I completely get the dumplings.  It was thick and rich and oily.  It needed the dumplings to soak up some of the oil and tone down some of the richness.  It was probably the most tasty beef stew I've ever had, only marred by some of the tiny bones from the tip of the tail that I missed when I was straining out the bones.  I got one right on my front two teeth and I felt that for hours.

Heart, lungs, the fatty and tough bits from the kidneys and some of the liver went for dog food.  I've been making dog food this way on and off for years.  Chop it all up roughly, put into a slow cooker with some minced beef, rice, oats or pasta, some veges and a little garlic and cook for hours.  It usually forms it's own thick gravy and freezes well.  I froze 24 litres of this that day, and two large bags of offal that I didn't have pots for.  It stinks while you're cooking, so if you're able to run the slow cooker out the window on a table outside this is a much better option.  I also had two large preserving pans going on the barbecue.

He gave me the suets from both steers too.  "Give one to the chooks" he said.  "They'll go mad for it."  They didn't really know what to make of it for the first day or so.  Most of my hens were battery hens that had finished their commercial time.  But they did figure it out in the end.  I rendered the rest.  I have two containers in my fridge and a large amount in the freezer.

I'd told Hubby that he needed to be cleaning up the tripe.  I've seen it before when it comes out of the cow, he had only ever seen it partially precooked when his step-father bought it.  He wasn't prepared for the smell or the colour.  In some sympathy and some disgust, I dragged it over a gate and hosed it down for him to begin with.  Then told him that he was supposed to be cleaning it.  Five minutes and he sent his parents a text to tell them they could clean it and he'd drop it round in an hour or so.  He's 95% sure it ended up in the bin and that they'd been expecting to get it bleached and boiled.

By this stage, Bishop and Clegg were making jokes about how the offal guy was going to be beggared but were also quite happy to see that I don't believe in waste and think it's something that's wrong with people today.

"Oh, that's right" says Bishop, "You wanted the skin."  He picked up my animal's skin and we draped it over the gate to the paddock.  "When it gets to be too much for you love," he tells me, "Give me a call and I'll come and take it away.  Same for the offal you won't get through."  When?  He said "When it gets too much".  I should know myself better, but that made it a point of pride right then and there.  I have tanned the skin.  It nearly got to be too much for me but I kept hearing his slight condescension and the way he didn't really think I'd be able to do it all.

So he cleaned up and drove away, Clegg taking the cleaned carcasses to the butcher.  By the end of the next day, I had about 70kg of food for us and the dog in my freezer.  That was before I'd gotten any of the "normal meat" back.  It struck me then just how much waste there is.

I posted a link to a video on facebook months ago.  This video is apparently an advertising executive explaining to an audience how their own wilful ignorance allows the meat industry to get away with cruel and intensive farming practices.  Fortunately, most of the ones shown in the video don't happen in NZ.  Sadly though, there was a comment on my post - and I quote:

While it is the truth, the population density doesn't really allow for any other method to produce the amount of food required for consumers. The day of the Rancher who can make money is gone.. .so in order to really fix this, we have to go back to distributed smaller local companies producing the food for local market, however, there is no profit in that anymore... so, how do we fix the problem without creating food shortages? Stopping factory farming stops food production.. how do we replace the food?

Given that we tend to throw away about a fifth of the edible bits of cow when we slaughter for food, I disagree.  I've been seeing a push towards "Nose to Tail" eating and found this great blog. But in my experience, suggesting using any of these parts in dinner is met with such disgust and it really doesn't deserve that.  What it does need is a little inventiveness, a return to making your own smallgoods and maybe digging out Grandma's cookbooks.

I was sure I had taken some photos during this process, but I can't currently find any of them.  I will add them and update this post when I do.