Meat feast

On Wednesday we cooked the meat we butchered on Monday in an earth oven, got a dutch oven on the go and made some cheese and buns.


First thing in the morning, me and Andy set about digging the earth oven. About 1m x 1m and 0.5m deep.


Lined the pit with rocks on the bottom and up the sides.

 Then we made the fire and had to keep it burning for five hours to get the rocks nice and hot.


While a few of us were messing around with the earth oven others had started making the cheese and bun dough. I just caught the end of it.

 After bringing full fat milk and cream to a boil they added the sour milk.



















Took it off the heat, gave it a mix and left it to do its business for a while tuning into curds and whey. Then it was time for coffee and buns.

The dough was rolled out to like a long sausage, stabbed a stick through the end of it, wrapped the dough around the stick and got it over the fire.

Tikkupulla, maybe translated to stick bun? Here's my effort. I didn't burn it and it actually tasted pretty good with a bit of jam on it.


OK now for some serious business. The veggies in a coin toss game, if it lands tails they continue the day as normal, if it lands heads they will be eating meat. They said they were doing this because they felt pressured into eating meat. But you can see from the pics of Monday that they were just looking for an excuse to get to eat that sheep.

Andy flips the coin as the others watch.

 

And heads it is.You lucky veggies.

 A soup lunch with the smoked pork from the previous day.

The boys prepping the meat for the earth oven. Oh and adding a little bacon.

























Bagging it up, we're getting closer.
































Nettles going in the dutch oven with more meat. I didn't get a picture of the oven in action, but if you don't know you put the pot on the fire then cover the lid with hot coal's so it gets heat from all over.

After waiting five hours for the oven to get hot enough, we pulled the hot coals off the top, put a layer of hay down to protect the meat a little (had to be quick before the all the hay caught on fire) , got the meat on, put a layer of cardboard (it was supposed to be birch bark but we didn't have enough at hand) and piled the hot coal's back on top followed by some gravel. Then all we had to do was wait another five hours for the meat to cook.

Five hours later...

Removing the rocks and coal's, and being very careful not to damage the precious meat packages beneath.

The meat out of the oven and straight into our bellies cos we were hungry!

Here's the cheese we made, we had taken it from the pot earlier, added herbs and alot of salt cos most of it will filter out, wrapped it in a cloth and put some weight on it to help the liquid drain and left it to set for a few hours. It was a real nice soft cheese. We had potatoes and salad with the meat, no time to take any pics I was too busy eating.

'the last six years were a mistake'                                                           Emily pretending not to enjoy it.

It was a long day cooking, about 12 hours. But we ate well so I was happy. One day of cooking still to report, possibly tomorrow? so until next time.

Laters