We are drawing extremely close to our butcher date and I wanted to get the word out that we still have five whole hogs available. These were born and raised here on pasture and they are definitely happy hogs. On Saturday, March 12, we’ll be bringing them in for processing. As part of the process we had to try out the ham and bacon from the new butcher. It was excellent.

Today we ate Grilled Ham and Cheese, so yummy. The boys devoured it. We are very happy with the quality of the ham we received and look forward to the sweet Mangalista cross pork that will end up in our freezer.

Here are some of our favorite meal ideas lately to make your mouth water:

• Slow cooker pork roast and homemade sauerkraut, cut up and served over spinach (or rice) with homemade thousand island dressing.
• Pulled pork on homemade buns, ham hock beans, salad
• Pulled pork tacos with all the fixings, refried beans
• Swedish meatballs, mashed potatoes, cut fruit and veggies
• Perfect pork chop from the Beyond Bacon cookbook
• Ham and scalloped potatoes, veggies
• Biscuits and gravy, cut fruit
• Sweet and sour pork with rice and sugar snap peas
• Peanut butter pork, rice, cut fruit and veggies
• Homemade pizza with sausage and bacon
• Lard for frying fish patties, eggs, venison sausage or most anything
• Grilled Ham and Cheese, fruit, chips and salsa

Give half a hog a try. You won’t regret it. Get your ham for Easter. They have been raised outdoors with GMO-free and soy-free feed. We charge $3.10/lb hanging weight and the butcher charges $0.58/lb for processing off that same weight. Your butcher costs will be higher if you have them make ham, bacon or sausage for you. Our average hanging weight is around 150 lbs. So a half hog would cost you somewhere around $300.00. Let us know if you are interested.

Don’t know if the title is appropriate, but I couldn’t resist. Please forgive me…