Hi Sjoerd - it depends on what we are smoking Sorry if this answer is so long. Our original smoke house was a walk into the bush by the creek, where we originally wanted to build. That was primarily used for fish, and had a fire in the bottom - they would smoke overnight and it was a hotter smoke. When the cost of hydro being put in to that site was realized, we moved the building location about 1 km in and built a second smoke house near by ( The walk into the bush with a load of raw fish was also a little to unnerving at times with bears etc, and they eventually found the smoke house Hubby was quite young and invincable back then. Early twenties. The second smoke house has a cold smoke system. A wood stove about 10-15 ft away sunk into the ground, with stove pipe leading to the bottom of the smoke house. This large smoke house has been used a lot from when we raised pork, and all of our hams and bacon were cured in there. As well as trout and salmon. Bear sausage was made and cured with heat for much longer until dried. We preferred out salmon cold smoked - like locks - and then frozen. Trout was pressure canned afterwards. Sausage was frozen and cooked...with it being bear - just to be sure. Cold smoked bacon was brined in maple syrup, salt and water for one week. Then cold smoked all day with a stoked fire until evening. Then the fire was allowed to go out, the bacon and hams would sit overnight until the next day. Sometimes we would be doing 6 sides of pork. Salmon was an overnight candy of salt and brown sugar, then smoked in the morning with only a few stokings of the fire. They would rest and come out that night or in the morning. Bear sausage was smoked all day and kept in a heat curing all night into the next day. Then frozen. With the forest fires and the amount of prep needed for the large smokehouse, the kids and I bought hubby a portable smoker for Christmas. This is the first time he has made our smoked pork loing/back bacon in it. We prefer this leaner bacon to pork belly ( it is also much more affordable) It is much easier and safer to operate with fires. It is only good for small items, but now that we no longer have farm animals that is fine. This pork was smoked 3 hours and then heat cured for 6 hours, and came out that night to rest. About 9 hours. It is a hotter smoke. He is just beginning to get a feel for this smoker, but it is nice for him to not have to be on the ground building and monitoring a fire. We could only run the other smoker in very early spring or frosty fall. He is hoping to make beef jerky soon, and then experiment with some pork, venison and moose sausages. They will smoke much longer and be heat cured for a longer period after smoking. Hope this answers your question in a round about way. What kinds of items did your grandparent's smoke?
Roast beef dinner tonight, with first broccoli from the garden, and first tender early steamed cabbage, mashed potatoes for hubby and cauliflower for me, with morel gravy.
Tonight we had grilled balsamic vinegar marinated chicken breasts, and baked potato. After all the cold salads and sandwiches, I thought we needed something warming, since the temperature was down to the mid-90's.
My daughter comes from the city about 12 hours away today for five days. Super excited and menu planned. First night is always a fun supper, as she is like us and does not eat out. She eats primarily vegan at home, but asks to get off the vegan bus when she is here. She picked chicken wings ( buffalo, honey garlic and BBQ) and homemade onion rings with ceasar salad. I just came inside from picking a large head of romaine, and starting to make the dressing, sauces and rings.
This sounds fabulous! Do you marinate them in anything besides the balsamic? And do tell how long......
The marinade is equal parts of balsamic vinegar and olive oil (2 tblsps. each), finely chopped onions and garlic (1 tblsp. onion and one clove garlic), and the chicken breasts are marinated for about 20 minutes. Put them on a cast iron grill, or outside on a charcoal grill, and cook for about 3-4 minutes a side. When cut, the inside of the breast should be moist, but not pink.
mart, Your Seafood Stew is out of this world.I made it this evening. I will keep this recipe in my files forever...Thank you for sharing it with all of us.
When our dear friends came for a short visit a couple of weeks ago, they gifted us a couple of special things, including this gorgeous thing: The Bride deftly cooked it in butter. Let the feast begin. How can one ever thank them enough. Just saying, “Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm” doesn’t seem sufficient. Did I mention that it was salmon?
Oh, it was. Crazy as it sounds, I think this tasted better than the salmon that I caught and ate in Alaska.
