Steak Pudding

Hello dear readers! Welcome back! Welcome to the new subscribers and followers, the sheep will be happy to drip green goo from the grass on you!

I can’t begin to describe how green it is here this year. In the 6 years I’ve been here, I have not ever seen the grass so vibrant and lush. I have areas that are almost knee high at the moment. We need to fire up the weed wacker and see about finding the front of the house again.

We had a heck of a thunderstorm come thru last Sunday night, and it was a doozie. So much lighting! It was continuous and made the whole yard look like daylight. It gave us another 6/10’s inch of rain. And there is more coming in for the rest of this week.

The sheep are all getting fat and sassy with this unlimited green stuff to eat. They are so full after a day’s grazing that they are slow to move out in the morning. I see lots of naps in the shade during the day. And they are staying INSIDE my fence line! WOOOT!

I am so grateful for all this grass!! My pasture has never been better!

I did take some time this week to start knitting a chicken, and i’ll get a pic of that up for you next week when it's done. I just needed to do something with my hands again.

Still have not gotten a garden planted. Boy child chunked up the raised beds we are going to use this year, and I got the seeds out. I hope to get more done on Saturday to get stuff in the ground. I am way behind this year, but the weather, as glad as I am for the rain, has made us late. I’m just doing a very limited garden, cukes, watermelons, and pumpkins is all. I did find a nice sage plant to stick outside the back door though. Cukes as I’m almost out of pickles, watermelon for the boy child and pumpkins for the sheep.

One of the bad things around here is the disappearance of the bees. We saw lots of them the first two years here, but they have long since gone away. My lilac bushes use to be full of the big fat bumblers. We do have wildflowers in the area, so there should be plenty for them to work on. Plus, alfalfa hay fields. I don’t think very many if any hay farmers spray insecticide so I can’t explain the loss of the bees. There is no row crop industry in the area, we are all hay, cows, and sheep.

Consequently, when I do get the garden going, I end up hand pollinating about everything. A few of the other flying insects do help, but I try not to leave it to chance.

I won’t set up a hive here since I am allergic to bee stings. If someone else wanted to I would have no problem, but I will not stick my person near one. We had a local beekeeper in Colorado that put hives on our place and it was wonderful. Great garden plus a take of each hive for letting them use our ground.

I had a chance to try the second pudding recipe I have. Again, I did modify it from “Steak and Kidney Pudding” to just “Steak Pudding”. Sorry folks, like haggis, there is some things I just don’t eat. I know many people love kidneys, I am not one of them.

Steak Pudding ala Fat Turkey Farm

2lbs stew beef, cut into bit size pieces (if you wish to add the kidney, reduce by 8oz and add beef or lamb kidney)

1 med onion, finely chopped

2T fresh parsley and/or thyme, finely chopped

2T chopped garlic

2T A.P. flour

2 1/2C Self-rising flour

1C shredded suet **see note below regarding suet**

finely grated rind of 1 small lemon

1/2C beef stock or water

Salt and pepper to taste.

Put the meat, onion, garlic and herbs into a bowl and mix well. Add salt and pepper to taste and sprinkle A.P flour over it, blending well.

Put self rising flour, lemon rind, suet and enough water to make a soft dough. I used about 1C, and it was pretty wet, so I had to add additional flour to it. Kneed the dough gently

Roll out to a 14” circle. Cut out 1/4 of the circle for the top.

Butter your pudding basin, or bowl. LIne bowl with the dough, and be sure to seal up the seam. Allow the dough to hang over the top of the bowl slightly.

Spoon in the meat mixture and pack it in carefully.

Add in your broth, filling no more than 3/4’s of the filling.

Roll out the remaining dough for the lid, lay over the top and seal the edges well.

Cover with your parchment paper, foil pleated lid and secure tightly. Again, I used some butcher twine to tie it shut.

Steam your pudding for 5 hours.

Run a knife around the inside of the bowl and invert onto a plate for serving.

We had it with a side of mashed tatties.

I gotta say, this was absolutely delicious!! Even boy child loved it!

Suet Note: This was my first time using suet as a fat in a recipe. I was not able to get a hold of my local butcher to get some and ended up ordering some from Amazon. This brand, Atora, came from Ireland. It was not what I was expecting.

I had anticipated it being used much like I would to make biscuits. You cut the fat into the flour until crumbly. Nope. This stuff is actually quite dry in appearance and does not cut into flour at all. I did use my pastry cutter to try, and it did help break up a few of the suet clumps.

This dough recipe is more like the suet and flour just mix with the water for the dough, then the suet melts as it steams. This was a learning curve for me! I will say it was quite a delicious finished crust and I will be sure to use it again.

I hope you all have a wonderful week! Here comes our rain!

Blessed Be!

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