We finally got around to making our first batch of hard dry salami. We were missing a couple of different cultures needed for the salami that aren’t available down here. Luckily we had a couple of friends who were willing to bring some down for us. The problem with the cultures is that they can’t be left at room temp for too long, so a three-week Amazon shipment would not work. We have a lot to learn about curing meats, but we’ve been reading like crazy. One thing I learned was the difference between salumi and salami. I guess salumi is an Italian word for all cured meats, including prosciutto and pancetta. Whereas salami is a word for sausage type meats. So all salami is salumi, but not all salumi is salami.
For our first batch, we decided to make seven sticks of spicy pepperoni, two big sticks of an Italian house salami, and two big sticks of Milano salami. They are in our curing chamber currently at a set temp and a set humidity. Over the next 6-10 weeks, hopefully they will lose 30%-40% of their weight and be ready to sample. Each one has a tag on it with a starting weight and will need to be weighed every week to check the progress until the proper weight is lost. We also decided to spray the outside of the casing with a white mold solution that is supposed to keep the bad molds from forming. After the first 10 days, the white mold on the outside is looking good, and they have lost the appropriate amount of weight so far. This is a big learning experience for us, but once we get this figured out, it should be great.
The other day our butcher called and asked us if we wanted half a pig at a really good price. Usually the pork we get from him is bellies for bacon or chunks for sausage. Recently we’ve been talking about curing some hams, which we haven’t done in a couple of years. So of course we said yes, and then told him how we wanted it cut for what we were going to make. As soon as we got home, we went to work getting it all packaged and into the freezer. We decided to keep the 15 lb bone-in front shoulder out and get it into a cure, so that we could smoke it for a ham dinner.
We also kept out and cured a 6 lb boneless roast that we made into sliced deli ham for sandwiches. Some of the other cuts from the pig we will try our hand at making prosciutto and capicola, once the salami comes out of the curing chamber.
We’ve been roasting and peeling cacao to make more chocolates. This time Kelley made another batch of Butterfinger bark. The filling for Butterfingers is peanut butter and candy corn melted together. Last time she made this, it tasted just like the original candy bar; it just lacked a little crunch. After reading some more on how to get that little crunch, it was suggested to add some corn flakes to the peanut butter and candy corn mixture. This batch turned out good, but it’s a little chewy. The only thing we can think of is that the candy corn was a little stale, but it still tastes great!
This year we ended up with 40-50 pineapples, after the critters got as many as they could. It was enough that we had them for breakfast for a couple of months and Kelley made up some more jam. Most of the pineapples were small this year, because we haven’t planted new ones in a couple of years. So it’s time to dig up all the old plants and get some fresh ones in the ground. We’ve got a bunch of new plants already rooted that were supposed to go in last year, but we just never got around to it.
One of our bigger projects around here this week was moving 45 big croton plants. When we first made the road in towards the house, we lined it with rocks and put in a bunch of plants along the edge. Since then we have cleared more area in the yard and made a semi-circular drive out of big rocks with a flower garden in the middle. The garden in the middle of the drive never really took off as we thought it would, and it seemed to be just a wasted area. So we decided that we should move all the plants and big rocks toward the back edge of the drive to open the yard up a bit.
We had Ruben move all the big rocks from the front edge to along the back side. Kelley and I dug up all the plants and got them moved to the back as well. After a couple of weeks and a lot of water, it looks like all of the crotons took the move well and are going to do good.
We are always looking for more plants that we don’t have for the new garden area, so off to visit the nursery. This time we were looking for some plants with a little color to them. We found some copperleaf plants and some purple ornamental sweet potato vine for ground cover. We also got a couple of different Alocasias that we didn’t have and some pink lobster claw plants. The yard is full of red lobster claw plants, but we didn’t have any pink ones. It might seem like we go to the nursery a lot, but when the plants are usually $5-$10 BZ each, how could you not want to take them all home?
When we were thinking about what we wanted in the new garden, we thought, why don’t we do a small section with some medicinal plants? So months ago we started potting small plants that would help with fever, digestion, insect bites, burns, etc. So now we have a small section with medicinal type plants and signs saying what they are.
For a few days in a row (that we saw anyway), we had somewhere around fifty coatimundis visit the yard. This is the most we’ve seen here at one time, in the past we’ve counted about 30. Right next to the BBQ there is a big palm tree that has a really big strangler fig growing on it. The coaties all came in at once, climbed up the tree and spread out to all the branches, eating whatever berries were up there. There were some bigger coaties in this group, but the percentage of them were small babies. Some of them were the size of a small squirrel. The moms would be squawking and all the babies would either run up or down the tree. Some were so small that they either just jumped or fell off the tree as they were coming down. While we were watching them, a big hawk or falcon flew right through the trees where they were. We don’t think he got one, but we couldn’t tell for sure. Either way, it’s awesome to see this, especially when it’s just thirty feet off our back deck.
This is only the second time we’ve seen a red-eyed tree frog around the yard. They are nocturnal frogs that are camouflaged during the day as they sleep, usually under leaves. Both times we’ve seen one, we were watering some plants and woke them up, causing them to open their big red eyes and change to their bright colors. They are a common, non-poisonous frog around here, but we rarely ever see them. That’s probably because we don’t wander around the jungle at night.
We also found this little guy sleeping on the front porch, it’s a good thing we didn’t step on him. We think he’s either a Mexican tree frog or a yellow tree frog. Both say that they turn white during the day to reflect the sun and then change colors at night.
After all the work we’ve been doing around here lately, the chair on the left is about how we feel. If it wasn’t for the love of plants, growing our own food, making meats, and maintaining this place, we’d probably just be sitting on the porch growing old.