Sausage Corn Chowder

A special thanks to Amy Roskelley for providing us with this recipe. For all of you who just cleaned me out of sausage, this will be a perfect recipe to try. She also has a great website and blog with lots of fantastic ideas. There are many more healthy, wholesome recipes on her website for you to try. Many of them will utilize produce out of your gardens!

www.superhealthykids.com
www.blog.superhealthykids.com









Sausage Corn Chowder

Brown and sautee
1 lb sausage
¾ cup chopped onions

Boil together
2 cups water
2 cups potatoes chopped

Then add:
1 can creamed corn
1 can regular corn
1 can evaporated milk
1 tsp Oregano
1 tsp Salt
½ tsp Pepper

Add sausage and onion to soup mix.

New Pig Farmer

Hey everybody, I just wanted to announce the arrival of our newest little pig farmer. Shia Hope Christiansen was born this afternoon around 3pm. At 6 lbs 6 oz and 19" she is a bit of a runt but absolutely beautiful. Hollie did really well and should be able to come home tomorrow. She has lots of dark hair just like Hollie did when she was born. Hans and Dane were so sweet and were cute to listen to as they held her. Hans and Dane couldn't figure out how the baby came out. Hollie and I just looked at each other when they asked about it. I am not sure if we are ready to start explaining that stuff yet! LOL They have seen our sows give birth so if it comes up again I guess we can refer them to that. : ) I will post pictures tomorrow when I get home. Thank you all for your concern and well wishes!

We Want Recipes!

We have heard back from many of you that you would like to see pork recipes on our blog. First, please understand that we are not chefs but farmers.

We try very hard to find recipes that aren't designed to add flavor to otherwise flavorless pork or to completely mask the flavor. We try to find recipes that allow us to taste the natural flavor of the pork.

One of my favorite meals is Biscuits and Gravy. We usually eat if for breakfast on days that we are going to be out working all day. It is hearty, filling, and keeps us going until lunch. However I love the flavor that our sausage gives the dish so much that I often ask to eat it for dinner too.

Biscuits and Gravy

INGREDIENTS

1 pound of Christiansen’s Hog Heaven Berkshire Sausage

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

2 cups milk

Salt to taste
Freshly ground Black Pepper to taste

8 prepared biscuits

DIRECTIONS

Crumble and cook sausage in large skillet over medium heat until browned. Stir in flour until dissolved. Gradually stir in milk. Cook gravy until thick and bubbly. Season with salt and pepper. Serve hot over biscuits. Serves 4

This is how Hollie usually prepares our pork chops:

Grilled Pork Chops

INGREDIENTS

4 Christiansen's Hog Heaven Berkshire Pork Chops
3/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil
3 T McCormick Grill Mates Pork Rub

DIRECTIONS

In a medium sized mixing bowl, mix pork rub seasoning and oil together. Place thawed pork chops in the bowl and stir oil mixture around till the pork chops are covered. Place pork chops on grill and cook to your preference. We like to cook our pork chops until the fat is just starting to crisp. To check if the pork is done, we make a small cut near the bone. The area around the bone is the last to cook. If you use a thermometer, the recommended internal temperature is 160 F. We usually eat this with fresh steamed asparagus and red mashed potatoes with skins on. Grilled onions and sautéed mushrooms are perfect as a topping on the pork chops.

This next dish is much more involved but mouthwateringly delicious. It beats nearly any dish I have had at any restaurant and is very gourmet. We adapted it from a recipe we found in Hobby Farms magazine

Cornish Game Hens with Apple-Bacon Stuffing

INGREDIENTS

2, 1- to 1 1⁄2-pound Cornish game hens (regular chicken works also)

1 tsp. salt 1 to 2 T. vegetable oil

For Stuffing

5 slices of Christiansen's Hog Heaven Berkshire Bacon

1⁄4 cup onion, finely chopped

1 1⁄2 cups dry bread cubes

1 cup apple, peeled and grated, tart or sweet according to preference

1 T. fresh parsley, chopped

1⁄4 tsp. dried thyme

1⁄4 tsp. dried marjoram

Salt and pepper to taste

2 to 4 T. dry white wine

For Glaze

1⁄4 cup apple juice concentrate, thawed

1 T. lemon juice

1 T. butter, melted

DIRECTIONS

Remove giblets from hens and discard or save for another use. Rinse hens under cold water and pat dry. Season cavities with salt. Set aside in refrigerator until ready to stuff. To prepare the stuffing, fry the bacon slices until crisp. Remove bacon strips from pan and crumble. Sauté onions in the drippings until soft. Remove onions with a slotted spoon. Reserve 2 tablespoons of drippings. (If bacon does not yield 2 tablespoons of drippings, add melted butter to equal 2 tablespoons). Place bread cubes in bowl and drizzle over reserved bacon drippings. Add apples, bacon, onion, parsley and seasonings; stir to combine. The mixture should just stick together without being soggy; if mixture seems too dry; add 2 to 4 tablespoons of dry white wine. Lightly stuff birds (do not pack firmly). If they still have their neck skin, pull the skin to the back and twist wing tips under back to hold the skin in place. If hens do not have neck skin, wedge a thick slice of apple or onion in neck cavity to hold stuffing in place. Tie legs to tail. Place hens, breast side up, on rack in shallow roasting pan. Brush with vegetable oil. Cover loosely with foil. Roast in a preheated, 375-degree F oven for approximately 90 minutes or until you can move the drumsticks easily in their sockets and the meat is no longer pink. Remove foil after first 30 minutes. Meanwhile, combine glaze ingredients. Brush hens with glaze two or three times during last hour of cooking, eventually using all of glaze. If desired, use pan drippings to make gravy to serve with the birds: After birds are done, remove them from roasting pan and keep warm on a serving platter in the oven. Strain the pan juices, dilute with 1 to 2 cups chicken broth and heat to boiling. Thicken using your favorite method, either flour and water or cornstarch and water. Serves 2.

If you have a favorite dish that you would like to share we would love to try it. Send it to us and we will post it on our blog (with your permission) so that others can try it as well!

Good-Bye Dozer, Hello Bolt!

We recently said goodbye to Dozer. A few months ago, we acquired some young gilts (female pigs that have not yet farrowed (given birth)) due to the positive response we have had to our pork. Because they are smaller than our full grown sows, (females that have farrowed before) Dozer was simply too big to use as our breeding boar. He is 1100 lbs, they are 300 lbs. You can run into problems like damaging backs, hips, knees, etc… if you allow a big mature boar to mount young gilts. We loved Dozer for his strong genetics, mellow temperament, and loving personality. We simply are not large enough of a farm to justify having several boars around. Boars are very hard on fencing, gates, feeders, and watering systems and therefore cost us money and time in terms of maintenance. Since he was the oldest, we thought it wise to let him go first since he had the least amount of breeding life left. We took him over to our neighbors and good friends, Rich and Amanda who provided a home from him away from the other pigs. We kept him there for about 5 weeks feeding him fresh greens and alfalfa. The purpose for this was to help settle the hormones in his system. The fresh greens help make him lean. The greens are also high in nitrogen which bonds to the two chemicals in boars that can cause boar taint. When the nitrogen bonds to the chemicals, it changes the molecules to where it no longer affects the taste of the meat. That is, if the boar has boar taint. New research is showing that boar taint can actually be bred out of pigs with selective breeding. Many boars don’t have boar taint to begin with.

Well, after five weeks, we took him to the butcher. The butcher called me a few days later and told me to come down and get a piece of meat. He cut me a piece off the carcass and I took it home and cooked it in a frying pan. I wanted to do this so that if there was any taint, it would be easy to sense, especially with Hollie’s “prego” nose. I swear pregnant women have stronger senses than a bloodhound. Anyway, we cooked the meat and couldn’t smell anything but delicious Berkshire pork. I called my brother in law, Stan who came over. He couldn’t smell anything either. We all tried the pork and it tasted just fine. So I called the butcher back and told him go ahead and process the whole thing into breakfast sausage. We recently got the sausage back and it is delicious. The sausage is packaged in 1 lb packages and sells for $2.49/lb. For those of you watching your weight, this sausage is very lean. We use it in spaghetti sauce, biscuits and gravy, sloppy joes, you name it. We us it anywhere we would use hamburger. The extra seasoning makes everything delicious.

For now we are using our back up boar Bowser (named by our boys who are currently going through a Mario phase). He is smaller and younger than Dozer, which allows us to use him on our smaller gilts.

We are looking forward to using Bolt who is the newest addition to our herd. He is a young boar, only three months old. We have been waiting for months to get a strong boar from a farm in Arizona. Their main boar is Perfect Blend who is well, perfect! He is the perfect specimen of how a Berkshire pig should look. Nicki Trump with Arizona Berkshires, the boar’s owner, has been keeping an eye out on his litters to find us the perfect boar that reflects the qualities of Perfect Blend. We have waited several months, but finally have a good boar with clean bloodlines, strong genetics and a long breeding life in front of him. We will begin to use him in 5 or 6 months. We would like to give a special thanks to Nicki Trump for the fantastic breeding program she runs and for her kindness and help in finding the perfect new boar for our herd.

PS. As an update I have included some pictures of our last litter. They grow so fast and are looking amazing with large round hams, and broad shoulders.

Please leave us your comments. We love to hear from you!

Work, work, work

I figured I better update our blog since it has been three weeks since my last post. We lost our camera and we have been trying to find it so that we can show how our little piglets are doing. To refresh your memory, our sow delivered 12 piglets last month. Two were stillborn. Of those we had one runt and another that was what I call “runty”. Not a true runt but smaller and less energetic than the rest. After a week, we noticed that both of the smaller piglets weren’t doing so hot. We decided to bottle feed since they were not even making an attempt to nurse. It was a lot of work. We had them in the house in a box with a heat lamp at night. One night the runty piglet jumped out and began wandering around the house. I woke up at 3:30 in the morning with the faint memory of hearing a snort. I was trying to figure out what woke me up as I am normally a deep sleeper. Then I heard the snort again which now had me fully awake. I tuned on my bedside lamp and found the little guy trying to climb into our bed. I put it back in the box and was able to get back to sleep. Unfortunately, we ended up losing both of these little guys. I read somewhere that 90% of runts end up dying. It is sad, but part of life on the farm. The good news is that we have 8 very healthy and vigorous piglets that are coming along nicely.

In trying to research methods to save those two little piglets, we did come across a product that we will try in the future. It is basically Carol syrup loaded with vitamins and electrolytes. It is supposed to give weak piglets a little extra energy to give them a better chance of survival. It isn’t medication but just extracts from fruits and veggies.

We are extremely busy trying to get our garden in. In Vernon we have a very short growing season. I believe we only have an average of 90 frost free days. I am also trying to get our well installed with a new main water line and hydrants installed throughout the farm. This will make life a little easier in the winter. Last winter we had to drag 300’ of hose and then drain it everyday so that it wouldn’t freeze. In addition, the water pressure is greatly reduced after 300’ of hose and we actually had days so cold that the water would freeze in the hose as we were trying to fill up waterers. Since we are redoing our water lines, I figured it would be a good time to install a sprinkler system in the lawn. So, we tilled up our yard so that we can install a sprinkler system and get a good sized yard in place for the kids to play on. Hollie is scheduled to have our baby in two and a half weeks, so I am trying to tie up these projects before then. We will see how it goes.

We are learning (over and over again) the importance of having the right setup, tools, and facilities. Hopefully we will soon be able to justify the purchase of additional land. I would like to build better sorting pens, breeding pen, farrowing structure etc… I would like to have a building that is heated in the winter and cooled in the summer. Then our pigs can farrow in a more comfortable environment. We could also install a watering system that would prevent us from having to go out and break ice. Of course we would install doors so that the pigs can come and go as they please from pasture to the building if they need a break from the elements. One step at a time I guess…

Since a blog is boring without pictures, here is a picture from a couple of weeks ago. We decided that we needed a breather from the farm and went camping up Ophir Canyon. We had a good time and were able to sneak in a horseback ride while my parents graciously watched the boys back at camp.

New Piglets!

Well, Big Mamma finally had her piglets. We were hoping she would have them over the weekend but of course she had them on Monday while I was at work. This meant Hollie had to keep an eye on her by herself. Big Mamma is the proud mother of 9 healthy little piglets. She had 6 males and 5 females. We lost two, leaving us with 5 males and 4 females. They are very cute and active and seem to be doing well.

I have to take my hat off to Hollie for her tremendous effort and dedication to our farm. We are constantly learning new lessons on our farm and unfortunately, we learned several lessons all at once during this last farrowing. (Pig term for giving birth.) Big Mamma is well, big; perhaps a little too big. Comparing her to some of our other sows I am realizing that she is overweight. She has the same access to feed as the others, but just like people, it appears she is more prone to weight gain than others. In our ongoing study of raising pigs, we have read that overweight sows will struggle more when farrowing than “normal weight” sows. Poor Hollie saw this first hand.

Hollie decided to run out and just check on the pigs before jumping in the shower Monday morning. She ran out and never made it back. Hollie told me that when she went out, she found Big Mamma in labor and two little piglets running around. She quickly realized that Big Mamma was struggling and needed help. She called our good friend and neighbor Brooke who recently had a sow struggle during her farrowing. Brooke was kind enough to come over and give Hollie some pointers and moral support. We think that Big Mamma went into labor during the night because after the two piglets, she seemed to have nothing left in her. She was trying to push but didn’t seem to have the energy to push the piglet all the way out. Once she stopped pushing then the piglet began to slide back.

Hollie being 8 months pregnant washed up and went in after that little piglet. Keep in mind that this isn’t done on a clean table but on the ground in a pen. When she was nearly to her shoulder she found the little guy and was able to pull him out. She said that Big Mamma seemed to realize that Hollie was helping her and just relaxed while her arm was inside. The labor dragged on throughout the day. Hollie called me once an hour at work to give me an update. Hollie ended up pulling 4 of the piglets. She didn’t have the time or the stomach to eat and survived on Dr. Pepper. I came home at 6:30pm and Hollie was still out there. She had just delivered the last piglet and both Hollie and Big Mamma were exhausted!

My sister Amee and her husband Stan came over to help us out. Stan helped me outside, while Amee cleaned the house and prepared dinner. Stan helped me gather the piglets under the heat lamp from a very agitated mother. She was so exhausted that she was having a hard time being an attentive mother. So we moved them into the creep for their protection.

A big thanks to Stan and Amee for their help and for going above and beyond with the house cleaning and to Stan for risking his limbs to gather the piglets. We also would like to thank Brooke for her encouragement and good advice and for taking the time to come over twice. We learned the importance of maintaining a healthy weight in our sows. We also didn’t have the heat lamp set up in the hut which really agitated Big Mamma when I had to kick her out to install it. All part of the learning process I guess. This morning, Big Mamma had settled down and was being very attentive and cautious around her little piglets.

My biggest thanks goes to my beautiful wife. Hollie is my hero. I can’t believe that she spent 11 hours outside on the ground next to a 700 lb sow. She even gave mouth to mouth and CPR to two of the piglets. She saved one of them and worked on the other one for 45 minutes before she decided there was nothing more she could do. She made sure to take care of our two boys while delivering pigs all while being 8 months pregnant. She is absolutely devoted to our family and our farm. Thanks Babe!

PS. Leanin’ H Ranch our beef counterparts have half of a grass fed beef for sale. The steer will be slaughtered in a few weeks. Leanin’ H Ranch is run by Darryl and Angie Holden who are 5th generation ranchers. They hold the same philosophies as we do in the way animals are raised. They raise their animals humanely with lots of love and care. They don’t give their animals antibiotics, hormones etc… These are delicious all natural grass fed beef. Give them a call, you won’t be sorry!

Darryl and Angie Holden
Vernon, UT
435-839-3408 home
435-830-2353 cell

Big Mamma

We would like to thank our customers for the overwhelming response that we had in selling our first group of Berkshire pigs. We are excited that you are excited about having Local, All Natural, Humanely Treated, Pasture Raised Berkshire Pork. Although we have raised pigs in the past, we are new to this level of farming. We have now sold all of the pork we had for sale. We have started a waiting list and have pretty much sold out on the next litter of pigs we will be raising. We are now glad that we have already purchased 4 more Berkshire sows. We are in the process of breeding them and hopefully by this time next year we will have 4-5 times the amount of pork for sale. Our goal is to operate our farm in an open, honest, and transparent manner. We would love to hear your feedback as we move forward.


We are anxiously awaiting a new litter of purebred Berkshires! Big Mamma is getting bigger every day. We figure she should be due around Mother’s Day. How appropriate! Since we let our pigs run together in the field and let nature take its course, we don’t always see when the sows come into heat. Big Mamma has very large litters for the Berkshire breed. The average is 6-8 piglets/litter for Berkshires; however Big Mamma gave birth to 13 piglets the last time she farrowed. (Farrowing is the term used when pigs give birth.) Two of them were stillborn which is always sad but fairly normal and part of life on the farm. She is such a good mom and weaned off all 11 piglets.


Yesterday, my five year old son, Hans, came out with me to check on Big Mamma. She was lying down in the straw inside one of the huts. She is very tired these days! She just looked at us and we could tell she wasn’t very comfortable. We decided to scratch her and try and make feel a little better. We started scratching her sides, right away she rolled onto her side so we could scratch her belly. She loved it and closed her eyes as we worked our way down to her belly. While we were there, we could feel the little piglets kicking around. For those of you have felt a baby kick while in the womb, try 10-14 little guys all moving and kicking. It seems very busy in there, no wonder she is so exhausted! All that scratching that Hans and I were doing quickly relaxed Big Mamma and before long, she was snoring. We quietly got up and let her get some rest. At times our pig farm is very hectic and stressful. This was a very peaceful and rewarding moment. I thank the Lord I was able to share it with my son.