Yeah, OK, It’s getting a little close to Turkey day by the time I get this up. Better late than never, I guess.

This is a really basic stuffing with sausage recipe that I used to make a batch of stuffing that would serve eight or so. I didn’t actually have a turkey at the time, so I just baked it in a cast iron pot, as you’ll see.

Start by making a batch of cornbread. I use a modified version of the recipe in Smokehouse Ham, Spoon Bread & Scuppernong Wine:

• 1 1/4 cups cornmeal
• 3 tablespoons whole wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 2 eggs
• 2 tbsp lard

Mix the dry ingredients together. Work the lard through the dry ingredients with a fork until it’s thoroughly worked in. Beat the eggs and fold the beaten eggs and buttermilk into the dry ingredients. Add the mixture to a hot, greased cast iron pan. It should sizzle a little. Bake in a 425 degree oven until it just feels firm to the touch in the center.

Onto the Recipe

You’ll need:

• One pound of Thanksgiving Sausage
• One onion. I got mine from MacDonald Farm
• One small bunch of celery. MacDonald Farm
• One batch of cornbread. I made a double recipe - one to eat and one for the stuffing.
• Two beaten eggs
• A little cream

First assemble your ingredients:

Coarse chop the onions and celery, crumble the cornbread, and add a little cream to the eggs if you’d like:

Fry your sausages to an internal temperature of 155:

Remove the sausages from the pan and sautee the onions and celery in the drippings. Careful here, the cranberries release a sticky liquid in the cooking that can burn. When they begin to brown add a little liquid - this can be stock or cider, but I just use water - and simmer them until they soften, maybe 20 minutes or so.

Everybody in the pool! Add the cornbread, crumbled sausage and egg mixture to the onion and celery. Add water or stock until the mixture is quite wet, nearly sloppy. Then stuff it in your turkey! To prevent food poisoning, you should stuff it into the turkey HOT, right before it goes in the oven. You can make it ahead, just warm it up before it goes into the bird. I don’t recommend stuffing deep-fried turkeys.

I didn’t have a turkey at the time, so I just baked it. Magnifique!

Quick, cheap and easy.

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Merck and Schering-Plough, the pharmaceutical giants, recently unwittingly pulled the last leg off of the stool that was supporting the house of cards that is the “lipid hypothesis”, the theory that eating saturated fat and cholesterol causes your “blood cholesterol” to rise which leads to a heart attack. The lipid hypothesis, also known as the diet-heart hypothesis, never really made sense and was never supported by the weight of the evidence. And now they’ve gone and toppled the whole thing.

Mind you, this thing has got a life of its own and its gonna take a while for the realization to sink in with the general public. But I’m calling it. The theory is now officially dead in the water.

Background

Like I say, the lipid hypothesis never made sense. The epidemiological evidence never supported it, ie the French Paradox. It’s no wonder that all of the large studies on the subject have failed to show the anticipated results.

It’s always been known that in European countries such as France and Switzerland people eats lots of saturated fat and yet have low levels of heart disease. These days we could also throw countries such as Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Spain into that category. Conversely, the highest rates of heart disease in the world are in Eastern Europe in countries such as Russia, the Ukraine and Kazakstan where they eat comparatively little saturated fat. In Uzbekistan, the people eat only one quarter the amount of animal fat that they do in France yet die of heart attacks at six times the rate. If saturated fat consumption is the primary cause of heart disease, how can you explain this? Interestingly, although it is true that in rural China they eat very low fat diets and have low rates of heart disease, there are subpopulations in China that eat tremendous amounts of saturated fat but still have very low rates of heart disease.

Furthermore, there is no relationship between blood cholesterol and heart attack rates either, epidemiologically speaking. If you look at the graph here, you can see that the three countries (of the nineteen included on the graph) with the lowest percentage of people with high cholesterol are China, the US and Russia. China has the lowest levels of heart attacks, Russia has among the highest and the US is right in the middle. Switzerland has the highest percentage of people with high cholesterol - more than fifty percent - and among the lowest rates of heart attacks.

Given all of that, it is hardly surprising that large scale peer-reviewed diet studies have failed to show any benefit to a low saturated fat diet. The Nurses Health Study kept track of the dietary habits and health outcomes of 80,000 nurses for over twenty years and found no benefit to a low saturated fat diet. The The Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial (MRFIT) had men eat less fat, exercise more and stop smoking but had no effect on heart attack rates in the test group. The Women’s Health Initiative low-fat diet study showed that a low-fat diet does not prevent heart disease, cancer, or stroke, and that a low-fat diet does not aid weight . Other failed studies include the National Diet-Heart Study , the Los Angeles Veterans Administration Study and the Minnesota Survey . More recently, several studies have shown that the Atkins diet improves “good cholesterol” levels while leaving “bad cholesterol” levels unaffected.

Given all of this, it was a little baffling when the original studies on statin drugs - cholesterol lowering drugs such as lipitor - showed that they reduced heart attack rates. Now don’t get the idea that they will make you live longer; none of the statin studies have shown that. The small decrease in heart attack deaths are generally offset with higher rates of death from cancer and violence. But they do reduce heart attack rates. A little. In people who already have heart disease. Now why should this be?

We know that statins lower “blood cholesterol” levels and reduce inflammation. We also know that aspirin reduces inflammation and lowers heart disease risk by a similar amount to statins at a much lower cost. We know that the evidence connecting “blood cholesterol” levels to heart attacks is flimsy at best. So the logical inference is that statins work by reducing inflammation rather than reducing “blood cholesterol” levels. How can we know?

A Japanese study, J-LIT, was done to determine whether or not the reduction in heart attack risk from taking simvastatin was caused by reducing cholesterol levels. How? They split the test subjects into three groups: people whose “blood cholesterol” levels were not lowered by the drug, people whose “blood cholesterol” levels were lowered a little and people whose “blood cholesterol” levels were lowered a lot. There was no difference in heart attack rates between people whose cholesterol levels were unchanged and those whose cholesterol levels were lowered a lot. The two groups had final “bad cholesterol” levels of 200 versus 80 but the exact same rates of heart attacks. This is highly suggestive that simvastatin works by a mechanism OTHER THAN “blood cholesterol” lowering.

The Last Nail in The Coffin

Which brings us up to the present, or recent past anyway.

This January, Merck and Schering-Plough released the results of their ENHANCE trial that was supposed to show that their drug, vytorin, would reduce heart disease rates by more than Zocor. This is interesting because Vytorin is a combination of drugs, a statin and a new drug, that reduces “blood cholesterol” by two seperate mechanisms. This allows it to achieve significantly greater “blood cholesterol” reductions than a statin alone. In the ENHANCE trial, vytorin reduced “blood cholesterol” levels by 58% whereas zocor only reduced them by 41%.

Did vytorin work better than a statin alone? Of course not! That’s because statins work by a mechanism other than lowering “blood cholesterol”.

Don’t believe me?

That’s fine. You should check out:

The International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics
The Fine Essays of Malcolm Kendrick, MD
The Cholesterol Myths
The Oiling Of America

Conclusion

Eat, drink and be merry! Don’t let the cholesterol cops run your life. The don’t have a leg to stand on. Be more like the French. They eat what they like and they don’t have heart attacks.

Now, you may be thinking, “Dude, maybe it would make things easier if you stick to introducing one new product at a time.” Which brings us to the question of what exactly are carnitas and pork confit. According to this, carnitas are “little chunks of meat, meat meaning pork, cooked in its own fat, with salt”. Whereas pork confit, according to this, is made by “taking a fatty cut of pork and braising it very slowly in its own rendered lard”. So you see, they are really the same thing.

There are differences between carnitas and confit:

• Cooking method: Confit tends to be fried in fat in the oven whereas carnitas is fried in fat over an open flame. Same end result, although carnitas are often a little more carmelized.
• Spicing: Most carnitas I’ve had has been seasoned simply with just salt. This is how I prefer them, but sometimes you’ll find them soaked in a citrus marinade or seasoned with aromatics such as allspice. Confit tends to be spiced with herbs such as parsley, thyme or rosemary. Ours will be seasoned simply with salt which gives you the flexibility to season it however you like. Trust me, though, they really don’t need anything.
• Preservation: Confit is traditionally packed into crocks, covered with the hot lard and then stashed in the root cellar for several months whereas carnitas is eaten fresh.

But the biggest difference is how they’re served. Serve them with corn tortillas, some fresh chopped cilantro and onions, crema fresca and Negra Modelo and you’ve got carnitas. Serve them with braised cabbage, mashed potatoes, a good loaf of bread and a bottle of bordeaux and you’ve got confit. Both meals are perfect for the right occasion.

We’ll be selling our carnitas/confit in medium sized chunks in a tub with a little of the cooking fat. They can be served cold or you can heat them up in some of the fat in a pan on the stove. Either way, it is traditional to shred them with a fork before serving.

Great news! The Piggery had it’s first round of summer babies this week! Our current count is 27 baby pigs with several more sows birthing in the next week. We put pictures and a video up at our website for you to see. Here’s the link:

http://www.thepiggery.net/archives/23

We’ve also added some new recipes to the site for your convenience. Feel free to poke around the site!

In other good news, we have a deli case that we’ll be unveiling at market in two weeks. We’re so excited! We think this will be really helpful for our clients!! You will be able to see all the cuts and sausages and we’ll be able to wrap each order on site to your specification. We’re also increasing production in July so we’ll have more fresh cuts for everyone.

Brad and Heather will be away for the weekend for a family event ( their only planned absence for the summer), but the booths on Saturday and Sunday will still be open for business.

Here’s where The Piggery will be selling this week:

Saturday 10-2pm: Red Feet Wine Market ( across from Ithaca Farmers’ Market on Rt13)
Sunday 10-3pm: Ithaca Farmers’ Market
Wednesday 4-7: Trumansburg Farmers’ Market ( next to Post Office on Rt 96)

Here’s our menu for the week. If you’d like to pre-order anything, just send us an email and we’ll be happy to package the order and have it ready for you.

Fresh French Cut Pork Chops: $10/lb
Fresh St. Louis Style Ribs ( usually 3- 4 lbs) - $6/lb
Fresh Rib Tips - $8/lb
Fresh Tenderloin -$16/lb

Kielbasa Sausage - $9/lb
Bratwurst Sausage - $9/lb
Hot Italian Sausage - $9/lb

Terrine ( back by popular demand!) - $7/half lb

Lard - $3.50/jar

We’ve had a few production issues with the pate this week and plan to have it back for sale by next weekend! Thanks to all our pate junkies for their patience!!

The Piggery goods are fresh, never frozen. All of our pigs are pasture raised and fed organic grains from a nearby mill. No pesticides, hormones, or antibiotics are ever used on our farm. All products are handcrafted by us in our solar/wind powered commercial kitchen in Trumansburg. We love giving tours - we hope you’ll come out for a visit sometime!!!

Thanks again for your support and patronage!

What you’ll need:

• Kielbasa
• Pasta - in this case I used spaghetti, but Little Ithaca’s Linguini, available at the Ithaca Farmer’s Market, would work great
• Lambsquarters - Lambsquarters have followed me around the country wherever I’ve gardened. They are at their prime in June. I pull the whole plants and pluck the leaves to cook with.
• Butter Hillcrest Dairy in Moravia makes a delicious local butter.
• Vinegar Cherry Knoll makes a fantastic cherry vinegar available at the Ithaca Farmer’s market
• salt

Start by boiling your pasta.

While that is cooking, prep your lambsquarters by plucking the leaves from the stems. Then brown your kielbasa. You can brown them them in links or remove them from the casings and brown them loose, crumbling them into good size chunks with a wooden spoon. When the kielbasa is done remove it from the heat. Deglaze the pan with a good splash of vinegar. Add the lambsquarter leaves and steam them until they soften, three minutes or so. Toss the lambsquarters with the pasta. Season with salt and butter to taste. Serve with the kielbasa and grated parmesan.

I turned her up fairly quickly on my second search. She had made a nest in a clear area near the end of one of the hedgerows and had four of the most ridiculously cute piglets I’ve seen. I called Heather and said, “Oh my god, Pigsalad had Chunk babies! You have no idea how cute they are.”

Heather said, “Oh come on, I’ve seen plenty of piglets. How cute can they be?” She can be so wrong sometimes.

There’s actually a lot going on in the phrase “Pigsalad had Chunk babies”, both from an historical context and from the context of our farm. We currently have two boars, a Tamworth-Berkshire cross named Krull and a purebred mulefoot named Chunk. Both of them had “access” to Pigsalad during her heat cycle and we had no idea who the father of her piglets would be. Which is why I specified that she had Chunk babies and not just any old babies. I knew it as soon as I saw the piglets, although I had to wait until I saw their single, uncloven “mulefoot” hooves to be sure.

When I saw the hooves I knew that I was looking at some very unique piglets. Their father was of a breed of nearly extinct American homesteader’s hogs descended from unspecialized feral stock originally introduced by the Spanish. Their mother was of a breed of “improved” English hogs of mixed Northern European and Chinese bloodlines that is rare in England and almost unheard of here. Talk about unlikely bedfellows.

We think this bodes well for the little guys. The most robust pigs often come from crosses of distantly related stock. I don’t think the parents could be much more distant. I can say this: so far they sure are cute. White coats are dominant in pig genetics, so purebred white breeds of pigs should have all white piglets. Interestingly, although Pigsalad is mostly white (Old Spots are largely white with a few black spots), the Salad Chunks (that’s what we’re calling them now) are all black with white boots. One or two have white noses and one has a white tip on it’s tail. For whatever reason, mulefoot black wins out over Old Spot white. They have mulefoot hooves, which is also a dominant trait. They have full flop ears that don’t cover their eyes. Cute!

Many of these recipes rely on hot corn tortillas. Store bought tortillas can be prepared by heating a heavy pan or flat griddle on high until they’re nearly smoking. Add the tortillas, let them cook for about ten seconds - they should soften and brown slightly. Flip them, cook for ten more seconds. Flip them a third and last time. Cook for ten more seconds. If the pan is the right heat, they will puff up a little on this third flip and they are done. If the tortillas are turning hard and black in spots instead of a nice light brown, the pan is too hot. Of course, you can always substitute flour tortillas but that’s lame. FYI, the best corn tortillas I’ve found in Ithaca are in Wegman’s on the end of one of the aisles in the back of the store in their own area. I’m not sure of the brand, but they come in package sizes between like 20 and 100 tortillas. They feel very soft.

The recipes also rely on crema fresca. This is basically freshly soured cream that can be found on the table of nearly every taqueria in Mexico, usually in one of those red plastic ketchup bottles you sometimes see at hot dog stands. American “sour cream” is made from a mixture of cream and milk, which gives it a much stiffer texture that I find unappealing. I make my own substitute for crema fresca by whisking a little sour cream into heavy cream a little at a time until the texture is thick enough not to run, but thin enough that it can be drizzled on with a spoon.

Chorizo con Huevos

For a quick breakfast, cook a little chorizo in a pan, maybe one link per person. Scramble in an egg or three and cook until the egg sets. Serve with hot corn tortillas, crema fresca and fresh pico de gallo. Heaven.

Chorizo Taco

Put chorizo onto hot tortilla. Top with finely shredded green cabbage, chopped white onions and cilantro and crema fresca. Serve with grilled scallions. Take a bite and dream of Baja.

Chorizo Y Paps

Cube potatoes quite small - maybe half an inch cubes. I like to use new potatoes or waxy fingerlings for this rather than a starchy baking potato. “Salt potatoes” work. Boil the potatoes in salted water until a fork will pierce them easily but before they’re mushy.

Meanwhile, cook some chorizo. Remove the chorizo from the pot and add the potatoes. Fry to brown them up. You may or may not have to add some lard or cooking oil. When they’re browned to your liking add back the chorizo, warm it up and …. serve with hot tortillas, cilantro and onion and crema fresca.

Chorizo “Nachos”

Preheat an oven to 350 or so. Put some commercial tortilla chips into a stainless steel bowl and heat them in the oven untill they’re warm and crispy, stirring occasionally. Cook some chorizo. Pour the tortillas onto a platter, crumble the chorizo over it and drizzle with crema frasca. You can also add diced onions, cilantro and scallions. You can even add fresh tomatoes if it’s tomato season!

Taco Salad

We serve this as a large dinner salad.

Make a creamy dressing out of crema fresca by adding a splash of vinegar, salt and a finely chopped chipotle or two from a can of chipotles en adobo. If it tastes kind of thin, add more salt. We usually make a pint or more, since this can be saved and used as a tortilla dip.

Cook some chorizo. Meanwhile, shred some lettuce into large bowls or onto dinner plates.

Assemble the salad by topping the lettuce with crumbled tortilla chips, creamy dressing, chorizo, diced scallions, onions and cilantro, in that order. (Heather would suggest adding the chorizo before the chips and dressing. She is dead wrong;) The chorizo looks nicest near the top.)

1 pound of fresh kielbasa from The Piggery
Cubed Potatoes - 2 or 3 pounds, we like a good waxy fingerling potato
Liquid - A half gallon or so of some combination of milk, stock or cream
Salt
A little cooking fat, preferably lard from the piggery

Start by frying the kielbasa in a medium-large pot in a little bit of your cooking fat on medium high heat until it browns nicely on both sides. It doesn’t need to be fully cooked. Remove the kielbasa from the heat and add your cubed potatoes and liquid to the pot. We like to use a half gallon or so of whole milk, but sometimes use half milk and half stock. Or if we’ve got stock and cream then we’ll use those. Whatever you can come up with, really. Anyhoo, bring the liquid to a simmer and maintain the heat until the potatoes soften. While the potatoes are cooking, slice your sausages into good sizes to fit on a soup spoon. When the potatoes are done, thicken the soup by pulling out some of the potatoes, maybe a third of them, mashing them with a wooden spoon and whisking some of the hot liquid from the soup back into them. Mix that potato mixture back into the soup, return it to a simmer, and add your sausage pieces. Season with salt and eat as soon as the sausage pieces are fully cooked.