January 30 – February 1, 2012: It isn’t a very long drive from Daytona Beach so we arrived at the campground with much of the day remaining. We decided to go out for lunch and found Finn’s Beachside Pub in Flagler Beach. Even though it was very windy, we decided to eat on their roof top deck. Afterward we went back to the campground and walked on the beach.

The next day we hung out and enjoyed the ocean.

On Wednesday it was time to leave, but not before stopping at High Tides at the Snack Jack for some more seafood and ocean.

We had such a short time in Austin, but since the town is such a foodie paradise we knew we had to squeeze in one restaurant. Darren began searching for tacos and came up with Tacodeli. We hit the place up on our way out of town and were glad we did. We both had the Migas plate and it was wonderful. It is a high energy kind of place, the kind that put you in the right frame of mind. Yep, definitely going back to Austin to stay for a while….

Currently my freezer holds a frozen filet of salmon, an Ossabow pork tenderloin, and a grass-fed lamb shoulder all purchased for Charcutepalooza challenges.  I also had a pork roast for grinding into sausage, but that was turned into a Sunday dinner.  I am sure that you did not click through to my blog because you wanted to find out what I have not done in the realm of drying, curing, and salting, but I thought since I was on the Charcutepalooza blog list I should post something.

I was so excited to hear about Charcutepaloza on Twitter. I received Ruhlman’s book  for Christmas a few years back and thought these challenges would force me to try some of the methods I might have otherwise been to timid to try.  It’s just that this is possibly the worst year for me to take on a new project.  Since I signed on to the group, my husband and I have finally decided to make the leap to becoming full-time nomads.  At any other time in my life I would have been instantly on Amazon purchasing a grinder attachment for my Kitchen Aid.  Not only are we trying to fit everything we need into a small RV, we have not been at home very much.

I still plan on completing as many of the  challenges as possible.  Actually, I look forward to seeing what I can accomplish in the “kitchenette” of the motor home (I really want to try Alton Brown’s terra cotta pot smoking)<– What? No, I mean when he smoked pork in two terra cotta planting pots.  Anyway, to make a short story long, I did not complete this (or last month’s challenge) but I still hope I will.

Last month’s bacon makin’ felt so rushed I vowed that March would be different. I would prepare homemade sides, maybe even try making pastrami, you know take my time and really make something epic. I ordered my brisket locally first thing. I really did. Then nothing went according to plan. It is now 10:30PM on the 15th and my corned beef has 20 minutes and 13 seconds left to cook. I would have given up making the deadline altogether if it were not for Darren telling me to go for it. We are in a campground on the edge of a marsh in Florida and I am braising the brisket in the RV’s tiny oven. I was not even sure that the oven was big enough to hold the meat (truthfully I had to curl up the edges a little in the foil) There was simply no way I could simmer something on the stove for 3 hours, this little RV would have been a meat sauna. I was relieved to read Ruhlman’s post on braising the corned beef. This was something I thought I might be able to do in the motor home. I guess we will find out in 8 minutes 15 seconds…..

While we are waiting, I will talk about the 20 pounds of fresh olives that we have put in brine. By we, I mean Darren. A friend of ours recently told us (By told us, I mean tweeted) about ordering fresh olives from Chaffin Family Orchards. I thought this would be a nice gift since Darren has been working so hard lately. He put the olives in the brine on March 5th. They need to brine for at least 5-6 weeks, so I won’t be able to report on the results now, but I thought a mention during the brining challenge would be appropriate.

OK, well the oven just beeped. The verdict? A little too salty. Ruhlman had tweeted that the thickness of your brisket should determine brining time. I pulled mine out of the brine at four days. Perhaps it should have been three. It is tasty enough that I am looking forward to having it in two days time for St. Patrick’s Day, but even more than that I am excited about our annual “The Day After St. Patrick’s Day” corned beef hash.

Before Darren picked up his credentials for the Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance, we stopped in at Chowder Ted’s for lunch. It was 1:30PM and every table was full. Since we were in the RV we ordered our chowder, clam strips and blackened crab cakes to go. After ordering a couple of Brooklyn Browns to drink while we waited for our food, we learned that Chowder Ted’s does not take credit cards. Luckily I had some cash in my purse (after searching every nook & cranny)
The food was really good. The chowder was unlike any I have had before. It was a fish chowder and contained olives. Our whole meal including the beers was about $25. We will most likely be returning during our 2012 visit to the Amelia Island.

Well this month’s challenge certainly did not manifest itself as planned. February’s project was all about the salt cure. We could make either bacon, or the slightly more complicated pancetta. Earlier in the month I had the opportunity to procure some Ossabaw pork belly and as I read the challenge it was already in my refrigerator curing. Since I have made bacon a few times before, my plan was to obtain some more Ossabaw and try my hand at making pancetta. No such luck.

The only local farm currently raising Ossabaw pigs is Nature’s Harmony but not only were they sold out of the Ossabaw, I had missed the cutoff for their monthly delivery to my area. This meant I could not order any of their Berkshire pork either. They do sell through our online farmer’s market, but did not have any belly listed. Through Twitter my husband asked Tim, owner of Nature’s Harmony, if he had any belly to sell. Tim graciously agreed to list some in the market for us. I was so grateful that he was willing to do this for us I bought two.

The bellies were very long and thin and I knew I would not be able to roll them from the long side as Ruhlman describes in his instructions. I tweeted @MrsWheelbarrow to ask if it’s permissible to roll from the other direction and she explained to me this would make my slices be with against the grain. OK, then I thought I will just make flat pancetta. “Oh wait, we are leaving for Florida for two weeks in how many days? Three?” How would I hang pancetta while driving around Florida?

It was then I decided to just make more bacon. I would start the cure at my house andbring it with me to Florida. Our first stopwas my parent’s house so I put the curing bellies in my mother’s fridge and asked her to turn them every other day or so. After visiting various spots in Florida I returned and smoked the bacon. My father has a bullet smoker and we had some leftover pecan firewood we purchased from our last campground.

While discussing the process with my mother I had mentioned that one part of making homemade bacon that can be tricky is getting your slices uniform. She said that her church has a meat slicer. If we weren’t in the midst of trying to downsize our lives, I would be shopping for a meat slicer right now. It made a quick and easy job of slicing the bacon.

Since my current tally was at 7.5 lbs of  homemade bacon, I gave one of the sliced bellies to my parents. When we returned a few days later she made a wonderful pot of beans for us with some of the bacon. During our trek around Florida, we camped for a few days at Fort De Soto park, which is right on Tampa Bay. I fried up some of the bacon to have with our breakfast on the water. It was well worth the effort I had made dragging my charcuterie all around two states.

You may have noticed the new banner on the sidebar of my home page. I have signed up to take part in Charcutepoolza, an online gathering of charcuteriers and would-be charcuteriers (<–Me). Each month we are issued one charcuterie challenge from Michael Ruhlman’s book “Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing.”   We then prepare and share our experiences about completing the challenges. I was very excited when I came across this idea on twitter (hashtag #charcutepoolza) because having received Ruhlman’s book for my birthday some many months back, I had as yet only prepared homemade bacon. I was thrilled about the prospect of trying more adventurous recipes.

The challenge for January was duck prosciutto.  In order to meet the January 15th deadline I would need to procure duck breasts at the very beginning of the year.  I knew a few of our local farmers raised ducks, but there were none for sale. The husband was kind enough to pick up a whole duck at Whole Foods during a trip to Atlanta; although I would have preferred to buy one from our local growers.  As luck would have it the very next week duck was available at our online farmer’s market.  I bought one even though I had already started the prosciutto.
So step one for me would be to cut up the duck. I have cut up chicken before, but never knowing that my butchering skills would be displayed for all to see. I found several instructions and videos online and followed them as best as possible. I think I did a passable job. Step two was covering the breast in salt and refrigerating for 24 hours. No problem. Then it was a simple matter of seasoning, wrapping and hanging them for about 7 days.
Mrs. Wheelbarrow’s Kitchen says she looks for a decrease in weight of about 30%. On the 7th day, I weighed the breasts and they were at 22% and 24% reduction. I decided to let them hang for a few more days. On day 10, I reweighed them and they were both at 26% reduction in weight. I didn’t want to leave them any longer, besides my deadline was looming, so I unwrapped them and placed them in the freezer for a few minutes.  I sliced one of the breasts as thinly as I possibly could and we ate it straight from the cutting board. It was delicious! I would have liked to be able to slice it thinner, but all in all I would say it was a great success. Originally, I had planned to served the prosciutto in a salad, but since snowpocalypse has hit Georgia I think I would like to make something more substantial like pizza.
I can’t wait for next month’s challenge.

[Update] Most every friday we make pizza. What else could we have for this Friday Night’s Pizza but duck prosciutto? We made it with spinach, red onion, and mozzarella. It was delicious.

Camp Waubeeka, Copake, NY to
Elk Neck State Park, North East, MD

We are spending some much time prepping to do things worth writing about that I haven’t had time to write about it. So a short summary would be:

Monday

• Ate lunch at The Grit
• Picked up our Total Pork Program Meat CSA from MoonShine at Farm255
• Dinner was a noodle stir-fry using the purple broccoli I bought through Athens Locally Grown

Tuesday

• Lunch at Just Pho and More. Darren had a Green Tea Bobo
• Picked up our Veggie CSA from Roots Farm
• Bought a Scooter

Wednesday

• Made biscuit with berries (yummy ones from out CSA)
• Watched the USA beat Algeria to advance in the World Cup! Scored in stoppage time. Booyah!
• Received our Amazon order containing Darren’s special gloves for dumping the tanks in the RV
• Got the oil changed and the car washed at University Car Wash
• Wrapped the Twin’s 1st Birthday Gifts

What’s that? The third item on Tuesday? You noticed that….. Uh Yeah, we bought an Adly La Vita Scooter from Recycle here in Athens.  It is arriving on Monday and we with any luck we will be taking it with us on our trip.  I am so excited.  I have been wanting a scooter for a very long time.  Now seemed a good time for us to do it.  Not only is it going to be useful for getting from campgrounds to track, but around the track as well.  Also I am very much interested in lowering our fuel consumption.  I am going to smile every time I drive past a BP station knowing that is one less dollar that I will be giving them or their kind.