I've Been Cooking And Learning New Stuff Again

I'm not a big fan of cold winter days, especially those that involve any kind of moisture or wind.

Since January 1st, the first couple of weeks were like that, but things started to get better after a bit. That put me in the frame of mind to cook a few things, which all turned out pretty well.

I found two recipes for bread that seemed simple enough for even me to follow, so I tried them. Here are some photos:

I also smoked a turkey ham.

Made some homemade butter and buttermilk.

Used the homemade butter and buttermilk to make some buttermilk pancakes.

I even smoked some cheese.

And just this morning I tried cooking some Old-Fashioned Cornmeal Mush.

It didn't turn out quite like I remembered it from my Boy Scout days.  So I'm saving some to pan fry tonight to see if that helps.  I really don't expect it to.

There's A First Time For Everything - Cooked Some Wild Hog

I'm almost 73 years old and have never to my knowledge ever eaten wild hog.  Until now.

A neighbor is a hunter, and wild hogs are among the animals he hunts.  He already gave us some deer meat sausage that was very tasty.  And a few days ago he gave us some back strap from a recently killed wild hog.

Here's the story in words and in pictures of how I cooked it.

I was anxious to cook that piece of wild hog my neighbor killed a few days ago and shared a piece with us. But before I cooked it, I asked for advice and got a lot of it. I settled on sort of a combination of a few of them, I sliced it thin, rolled it up and wrapped it in bacon. I'm glad I did it that way because it turned out quite nice. A little tough but very tasty.

I used Cluck & Squeal rub on it after I rolled it up, and cooked it direct on the Big Green Egg with some hickory smoke. You will see in the photos that I had to move them off to the side because of the bacon grease flair-ups.

I cooked them all to between 140° and 147° internal. One suggestion was to cook them to 135° but I went with the higher recommendations.

While I was in cooking mode I also decided to make some Dutch Oven Bread in the Big Green Egg using a new recipe.  I cooked some a week ago but this time I decided to split the dough between a smaller Dutch Oven and a stoneware bread pan. It turned out much better.  I think its because I went to the store to get some fresher yeast, and I used filtered water from my frig. I didn't want tap water with chlorine in it.  I also heated the water to 114° before adding the yeast and sugar to it.  Within ten minutes I had a lot of yeast foam in the bowl.  I was definitely on the right track.

I also decided to cook some acorn squash and a couple of small Banquet Pies on the Egg. The Squash was wonderful with just some butter and salt and pepper. The pies were handy but not so great.

An inexpensive bottle of Riesling added a nice touch.

It all turned out great.  In fact, surprisingly good.  I won't be turning down any wild hog in the future.

I took some of the now smoked and cooked hog to the neighbor to see what he thought about it. He laughed and said it was better than his. I think he was just being nice.

I took a lot of photos but these should give you some idea of how it turned out.

The wild hog backstrap



The yeast after 10 minutes



The dough for bread



The dough after 20 minutes rise time



The bread just out of the Egg.



The Bread sliced.



The hog on the Egg direct.



Moved off to the side due to flare-ups



On my plate.



Nice pink with good hickory flavor.



Will do again if he brings more.

I would call this was a very nice surprise. I had always heard that wild hog meat was notoriously tough and bad tasting. I learned that it can be but it can also be an excellent piece of meat.

Don't hesitate to accept it if you have a friendly neighbor who hunts them.

Spring "Wild Man Tamed" Chicken
Spring Texas USA