Here at the AdFarm KC office this morning, some thoughtful person brought in these cool little recipe cards titled Fine Swine-ing.

Prociutto-Balsamic Deviled Eggs

Each one has a great recipe for some pork-tastic dish for entertaining. I tried looking around online for who might be putting these out, but I came up empty-handed.

The recipes looked so good, however, that in lieu of links, I’ll just post them here for your enjoyment. Happy Hog-idays. Sorry, I couldn’t resist.

Prosciutto-Balsamic Deviled Eggs
Prep Time: 15 min
Cook Time: 30 min
Ready in: 1 hr

Ingredients
-12 eggs
-1/2 cup mayonnaise
-2 tsp white sugar
-1/2 tsp balsamic vinegar
-1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
-4 slices bacon
-1/4 cup minced red onion
-1/4 tsp celery salt
-1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley

Directions
Place the eggs in a large pot in a single layer and fill with water to cover by one inch. Cover the saucepan and bring the water to a boil; immediately remove from heat and let the eggs stand in the hot water for 15 minutes. Drain.

Cool the eggs under cold running water in the sink. Peel and halve lengthwise. Separate the yolks from the whites, placing the yolks in a bowl. Arrange the egg whites with the rounded side down on a serving platter.

Place the bacon in a large, deep skillet and cook over medium-high heat, turning occasionally, until evenly browned – about 10 minutes. Drain on a paper towel-lined plate; chop.

Mash the yolks with a fork. Add the bacon, mayonnaise, onion, sugar, vinegar, celery salt and pepper; stir until thoroughly combined. Spoon the mixture into the egg whites. Garnish with parsley.

Hot Ham and Cheese Dip
Prep Time: 10 min
Cook Time: 2 hr
Ready In: 2 hr 10 min

Ingredients
-1 lb thinly sliced deli ham, sliced into thin strips
-1 (8 oz) package cream cheese, cut into cubes
-1 (10.75 oz) can condensed cream of mushroom soup, undiluted
-1 (10.75 oz) can condensed cream of celery soup, undiluted
-2 cups shredded Swiss cheese
-2 (1 lb) loaves of cocktail rye bread

Directions
In a slow cooker, combine the ham, cream cheese, cream of mushroom soup and cream of celery soup. Stir in the Swiss cheese.

Cover and cook on low until cheese is melted, about two hours, stirring occasionally. Serve on cocktail rye slices.

Brown Sugar Smokies
Prep Time: 10 min
Cook Time: 20 min
Ready In: 30 min

Ingredients
-1 (16 oz) package little smokie sausages
-1 lb bacon
-1 cup brown sugar, or to taste

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Cut bacon into thirds and wrap each strip around a little sausage. Place the wrapped sausages on wooden skewers, several to a skewer.

Arrange the skewers on a baking sheet and sprinkle them liberally with brown sugar. Bake until bacon is crisp and the brown sugar melted.

Prosciutto-wrapped Grissini
Active Time: 50 min
Total Time: 3 hr 15 min

Ingredients
-12 thin slices prosciutto di Parma
-12 grissini

Directions
Wrap a slice of prosciutto around upper portion of each breadstick at an angle, slightly overlapping.

Cook’s Note
Grissini can be wrapped 30 minutes ahead and kept, loosely covered, at room temperature.

Blue Bacon Stuffed Mushrooms
Prep Time: 5 min
Cook Time: 33 min
Ready In: 38 min

Ingredients
-3 strips bacon
-6 large mushrooms
-1 Tbsp butter
-1 clove garlic, sliced
-3 oz cream cheese
-1/2 onion, diced
-1/3 cup bread crumbs
-3 oz blue cheese

Directions
Cook bacon strips in a large skillet over medium heat until crispy; drain on paper towels.

While bacon is cooking, remove stems from mushrooms. Set caps aside and chop stems. Add butter to skillet with bacon grease. When melted, stir in mushroom stems, onion and garlic. Cook, stirring frequently until the onions caramelize – about 15 to 20 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 C). Spray a small baking dish with cooking spray. Once the onion mixture has reached a deep, rich brown color, place into a blender along with bacon, cream cheese, blue cheese and bread crumbs. Blend on low until ingredients are roughly chopped and evenly combined.

Stuff cheese mixture into mushroom caps and place into prepared baking dish. Bake in preheated oven until bubbly and lightly browned – about 10 to 15 minutes.

Sausage Stuffed Jalapenos
Prep Time: 25 min
Cook Time: 20 min
Ready In: 45 min

Ingredients
-1 lb ground pork sausage
-1 (8 oz) package cream cheese, softened
-1/2 cup shredded Parmesan cheese (Editor’s note: Use Parmigiano Reggiano or other fresh Parmesan, not that clylinder, you savage)
-1/2 cup shredded cheddar and mozzarella cheese
-1 lb large fresh jalapeno peppers, halved lengthwise and seeded
-1 (8 oz) bottle Ranch dressing

Directions
Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 C). Place sausage in a skillet over medium heat and cook until evenly browned. Drain.

In a bowl, mix the sausage, cream cheese and Parmesan cheese. Spoon about one Tbsp sausage mixture into each jalapeno half. Arrange stuffed halves in baking dishes. Bake 20 min in the preheated oven until bubbly and lightly browned. Serve with Ranch dressing.

Ham and Cheese Puffs
Prep Time: 15 min
Cook Time: 15 min
Ready In: 30 min

Ingredients
-2 1/2 oz sliced ham, chopped
-1 small onion, chopped
-1/2 cup shredded Swiss cheese
-1 egg
-1 1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
-1/8 tsp pepper
-1 (8 oz) package refrigerated crescent rolls

Directions
In a large bowl, combine the first six ingredients; set aside.

Divide crescent dough into 24 portions. Press into greased miniature muffin cups.

Spoon 1 Tbsp ham mixture into each cup. Bake at 350 degrees F for 13-15 minutes or until golden brown.

Sweet and Sour Ham Balls
Prep Time: 20 min
Cook Time: 45 min
Ready In: 1 hr 5 min

Ingredients
-4 eggs, lightly beaten
-1/4 cup chopped onion
-1 1/2 cups soft bread crumbs
-2 lb ground ham or pork
-2 (8 oz) cans crushed pineapple, undrained
-1 cup packed brown sugar
-1/4 cup prepared mustard
-2 Tbsp cider vinegar

Directions
In a bowl, combine the eggs, onion and bread crumbs. Crumble meat over mixture and mix well. Shape into 1-1/2 in balls. Place in two greased 13x9x2 in baking dishes.

In a blender, combine the pineapple, brown sugar, mustard and vinegar; cover and process until smooth. Pour over ham balls. Bake, uncovered, at 350 degrees F for 45-50 minutes or until a meat thermometer reads 160 degrees F; basting occasionally with sauce.

Last week, messages started showing up in my Twitter stream with a birthday wish from @FarmerHaley (Mike Haley), an Ohio grain farmer and Simmental breeder. The wish: get the hashtag #moo into the top 10 Twitter trends at 1:00 p.m. EDT on Sunday, August 2. The reason: bring some much-needed attention to the economic plight of America’s dairy farm families, who are currently losing about 50 cents on every gallon sold at retail due to low milk prices and increasing costs of production.

In case you were unplugged this weekend, @FarmerHaley‘s wish came true! For about eight hours yesterday, #moo was one of the top 10 Twitter trends, rising as high as number 4 by my count.

I chipped in with thanks for my wife’s coffee cream and the wonderful cheeses that make up an enormous part of both our diets. I threw in a couple birthday wishes while watching the news, retweeted some important information while folding laundry and popped off a few tweets of support from the grocery store.

Turns out, about 1,500 other people were doing exactly the same thing. And once #moo started trending, even more people added to its strength with questions about the origins of #moo. California dairyman @RayLinDairy (Ray Prock) did a marvelous job getting inquisitive folks informative links about the trend and bringing light to the tough situation facing his fellow farmers.

It’s Monday now, and Twitter is mooing a bit less. But that doesn’t mean we should forget what’s happening on dairy farms (or hog farms, or ranches) right now. Support the folks helping feed your world. To read more, check out the following links:

Ray-Lin Dairy
Farm Bureau Voices of Ag
Gilmer Dairy

I’ll admit it. I’ve anthropomorphized a time or two. In any creative profession, it’s an easy fix to ascribe a like mind to an object or creature. It helps make old stories new again or create a more compelling interpersonal narrative where one doesn’t naturally exist (see: Cars, WALL-E, Toy Story, the entire Looney Toons catalogue, the Disney empire, Babe, Charlotte’s Web, California Cheese marketing, Chick-fil-a’s long-running gag and the Honda Fit commercials).

You can see from the list, anthropomorphizing can be helpful. It can be fun. It can be useful.

Most of the things on that list I like, remember and enjoy, save the Disney catalogue. With a younger sister, I watched a crooning Caribbean crab serenade two young lovers one too many times.

But there are a few places where anthropomorphizing shouldn’t be taken lightly. Like the animal welfare debate. For every happy cow, there’s a very unhappy cow nipping at your heels in the Google results.

You see, people are very clever, but our brains are even more clever.

I once took a seminar on Philosophy of the Mind, and we spend a good chunk of time discussing Theory of Mind. Basically, it’s our ability to, by attributing our own self-understanding to another, figure out what he or she may be thinking, what he or she intends to do or what underlying motives the subject may possess. It’s the mechanism that helps you anticipate and respond to questions in a meeting before they’re even asked. It’s what helps us offer helpful advice to a fellow sojourner. It’s the reason you talk to your dog like a baby. It’s the mechanism that allows us to function as a society without coming across as total dullards or feeling as if we have to constantly explain ourselves.

Theory of Mind makes the world work. It’s also what makes it so easy for groups like HSUS to solicit enormous amounts of money with heartstring-tugging ads and so difficult to sell a story of animal care based on sound science. Being a science buff myself, I kinda hate those odds.

By the way, if you’re interested in reading it, you can download the CAST paper from that last link for free. It’s a good read if you’re the type of person who gives a damn about the conclusions of logical, critical minds who study these issues day in and day out.

So maybe it’s a good thing we have a heifer from Wagner farm in North Dakota tweeting her story, following in the footsteps of the first four-legged Twitter star, Sockington.

After all, it should be a hell of a lot easier for good-hearted producers and veterinarians, who spend time around them every day, to write a better story about our anthropomorphized animals than the people with all the bucks but none of the science or experience on their side.

So here’s a call to arms. For all the folks out there with the ability to do so, give a tweet on behalf of your favorite sow, hen, heifer or steer. People want to know what they’re eating, but you have to reach them in a way they’re compelled to pay attention to. All the science in the world doesn’t go half as far as a great narrative that exploits the built-in mechanisms of the brain.

Cheers,

jae

The average Fourth of July celebration usually includes a few key ingredients – grilling, cold beer, good friends and a helping of colorful explosions.

But a truly great celebration, like a truly great dry rub, is all about those lesser known ingredients. In the case of our Fun Fourth, we’re talking slow-smoked pork shoulder, a roll of four thousand firecrackers, an air rifle and few very serious law enforcement officers, among other things.

I should say, I really wanted to do this post as a play-by-play on the Fourth, but I was way, way too dirty to even think about touching my phone. Honestly, I looked like I slept in garbage.

Here’s how the weekend went down:

July 3:
We arrived at Robbie and Jenny’s place in Union, MO around 2:00 on Friday. After eating everything we could lay our hands on (we didn’t stop the entire way), it was time to head out for supplies. I stuck around the house to keep an eye on Max (Robbie and Jenny’s five year old) and watch Real Genius, Val Kilmer’s second film after Top Secret. I’ll watch anything that delivers retribution by way of popcorn.

Brooke, Jenny and Kendra came back with food and drink. Robbie came back with a sweet-ass Daisy 8800 high-velocity air rifle. We immediately retired to the back porch to shoot cans and bottles. After about two hours of decent marksmanship I hear:

Police officer leaning over the roof of his car, his handgun trained on Robbie: Drop the fucking gun, man!
Robbie, both hands up: Whoa, it’s just a BB gun!
Police officer, not budging: I don’t fucking care. Drop. The. Gun. Now!

After letting the officer inspect the weapon and being asked a lot of questions about our (lack of) criminal histories, the officer informed us, it’s not okay to fire any kind of gun within the city limits, especially when it looks like a .22 rifle to passers by. Lesson learned. I also learned I can deal with a loaded gun pointed at me without peeing my pants. This skill will absolutely come in handy again.

The rest of the evening was less eventful. Max decided to impersonate a very unfortunate pirate.

Captain Max, world's unluckiest pirate

July 4:
“Jacob, it’s 8:30. Gotta go start the smoker.”

Zombied my way downstairs to start the smoker. Here are the ingredients for a good day:

One tried and true smoker

One awesome nine pound pork butt

Quality all hardwood lump charcoal

Also, you’re going to need about nine to twelve hours, a few pounds of hickory chunks, a steel will and enough cold beer to see you through the day.

After about six hours, your conquest is going to look like this:

Oh, you smoky temptress!

Do not give in! You’ve got to wait for perfection.

When a pork shoulder is ready, the bone will slip out effortlessly and it’ll be completely clean. It’s going to take how long it takes, and that’s usually about an hour to an hour and a half per pound. For at least six hours, you’re going to want to keep that heat right at 225 degrees and consistently add hickory chunks to the smoker. The first six or seven hours are when you’re going to get the most smoke penetration. After that, wrap that bad boy in aluminum foil and take the temperature to 350 for the remainder. Sneaky secret – you can actually do this portion in the oven if you’re sick of babysitting the smoker. As far as I’ve experienced, it doesn’t have an appreciable effect on the end product.

Well, that’s how it’s done. I wish I’d taken a picture of the end product, but we got on it pretty quickly. Looked something like this:

Cheers,

jae

I was picking up some tortillas at the grocery the other day. As I’m surveying the choices (and there are startling number for an item that’s just flour, fat and water), the woman beside me turns and asks what kind of beans she should get for a corn and bean salsa. I say black beans are definitely the way to go because they’re more squishy than the pintos, and a nice offset to the crunchy corn.

She furrows her brow, smirks and points to her Bluetooth headset. I fucking hate those things.

Pardon me, lady, for thinking your eyes looking directly at me while your mouth formed a question implied that question was directed to me.

This is what failure to properly segment looks like to your customers. It’s speaking at, not speaking with, and it makes you seem tone deaf and out of step.

A well-tailored message in the proper venue speaks clearly and unambiguously to the people who need to hear it. Fail to put in the legwork to identify your audience, and you’re just another clueless Bluetooth user shouting questions down a tortilla aisle.

Cheers,

jae

Was it bettering and discussing your profession on Twitter? That’s what the folks at #agchat were doing. This week’s topic was #foodchat, and the discussion was all about food safety.

These producers and professionals came in from chores and postponed family dinners to talk about how to better the food safety situation in America – what works, what doesn’t, how to regulate it and what each of us can do to improve an already good thing. Awesome discussion I hope to take part in again in the future.

If you’re interested, hop onto tweetchat and enter #agchat to take part next Tuesday at 7 ET/8 CT.

Cheers,

jae