>> They say you are what you eat, so I don't eat chicken feet, but I love me some of Grandma's pickled beets.

Well cut it up, put it in the pan, throw it over your shoulder and see where it lands.

Right here in Farmer's Kitchen.

Maters, taters, beans and corn, the cows in the barn and the [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] sheep's been shorn.

Kids in the barnyard chasing Grandpa's chickens, chickens, chickens!

Spices, slices cuts and dices, going to slash your grocery prices right here in Farmer's kitchen.

Help you grow your garden good with recipes to suit your mood try some grub you've never tried before.

Smash it with a wooden mallet gonna educate your palate, [MUSIC] right here in Farmer's kitchen.

In Tim Farmer's Country Kitchen.

[MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] We gonna cook somethin good now.

>> Hello, and welcome to the Farmer's kitchen.

Hello, Mrs Farmer.

Hello, Mr. Farmer.

You're looking ravishing as usual.

You look very ravishing yourself.

Well, thank you very much.

You know what?

We've got a busy kitchen.

Yes, we do.

We got stuff going everywhere.

Why?

Why?

Because it's hog killing time.

That's right.

In the old days, they didn't waste anything.

And the old timers used to say at hog killing time, they ate everything but the squeal.

That's right.

They didn't waste anything.

And that's admirable.

Mm-Hmm.

As we look around, you see stuff that you normally wouldn't think of.

Yeah.

I'm going to change your mind.

OK. Alright.

So tonight we're going to make breakfast sausage.

Now you think about, let's go back and look at all the things we've done.

We've made ham with our buddy Jay.

We've smoked hams, we've made bacon, we've done a seven day cure, we've done a three day cure.

And the three day was probably just as good as the seven.

So we do a lot of three day cures, which we're getting ready to do very shortly.

Brats.

We have made bologna.

We have made sausages, we've made all kinds of stuff.

But what we haven't done is make breakfast sausage.

What do you think about today's breakfast?

Very, very good.

And you don't like hot stuff and it was farely hot.

It was good.

So what we're going to do here just to get started because the process has to begin.

We're going to take our pig's feet.

Yummy.

We're going to have pickled pigs, feet.

I know that sounds, to some people, delicious, It sounds crazy, but don't knock it until you try it.

I wish Sammy was here.

Look at all.

I mean, seriously, look at the end of this.

Look at all the meat that's on there.

Think about think about what's wasted if you throw this away.

Everything but the squeal.

This will be your lunch.

So here's how we're going to get these started before we start our breakfast sausage.

We're going to put the top on there in a minute.

We're going to get those boiling and then kind of crank back just a little bit.

We're going to keep those cookin for about an hour and a half till it starts to, the meat starts come off the bone.

And you're going to love them so much, you probably'll want to eat them all.

Whew.

I bet.

Yes.

Something else we're going to do.

Now, we've done this outside before, but we want to show you how easy it is to render your own lard.

That I love.

We're finding out the science is changing, that lard is not necessarily a bad thing anymore.

In its purest form, it's actually rather good for you.

So we need more desserts.

We need more desserts.

That's right.

Wait a minute.

That's what I do with lard.

You just ruined the whole thing.

But if you're making desserts, I'm eating them.

OK.

So let's get those going.

Again, once that gets to boiling, we're going to let that go for about an hour and a half, maybe two hours.

Mrs. Farmer all day long has been separating fat.

I have.

And skin, and this is how we came to this stage over here.

I've run this to the ground or a little bit.

I'm going to go ahead and run that through one more time.

They're going to start our sausage.

[MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] Now, all this comes to us from our pig that we raised.

That's right.

From Marge.

I didn't like her.

Marge bit Nicki on the hand.

She did.

I have a scar.

She's got a scar.

So.

And immediately after that...

I called...

It's time to go to market.

That's right.

So anyhow, I think she mistook her hand for a donut because you were spoiling her.

You were spoiling her.

So anyway, this is our pig that we raised.

It's so nice to know where your food comes from, if you can do that.

But I will say this, everything that we got tonight, everything that we have, including the pigs feet, even have a pig's head.

That we're going to be using for something later.

Everything that we have, you can buy at your butcher shop.

You can go and you can buy skin, you can buy fat, you can buy feet, you can buy ears, you can buy just about anything at your butcher.

It's pretty cheap.

Yes, it is very cheap.

There's nothing like having your own lard for your own recipes.

That being said, there's also nothing like the breakfast sausage we're about to make.

That's right.

So here's what we're going to do.

We're going to start with salt and pepper.

And recently I had to get a spice rack.

It was so hard to dig around and find what you need.

You're happy now, aren't you?

I'm very happy and you know, I got the spice rack and I was worried because I thought we'll never fill 60 spices.

Well, we need another one about the same size.

I found out I have a lot of spices.

OK, for 2 pounds, we're going to use two teaspoons of salt.

Then we're going to come back with two teaspoons of pepper, a teaspoon and a half of sage because I like a lot of sage.

Then we're going to take about a teaspoon of garlic.

I'm going to crush some fennel seed up a little bit, and I'm probably do about close to a teaspoon of that.

Then I'm going to come back with some thyme.

I'm going to at least put a teaspoon of thyme in there.

I'm gonna put one teaspoon of all seasoning spice in here.

I'm going to also add some minced onions, just a few dried minced onions and then a little brown sugar.

You don't have to do that.

I like a little sweet.

And then if you come back with some cayenne like I did this morning.

Mmm-himm, good sausage.

You like that?

It was delicious.

And you don't like it hot.

I know it.

Then I found something at the store not too long ago, and it's just basically a Chipotle smoked paprika.

Delish.

I thought that really tastes good in that.

And then I'm going to put a dash at the end of just a little Italian mixed seasoning in there.

As a lifelong sportsman when I was in Kentucky Afield.

I thought it was really our job as sportsmen to say, OK, I worked for the department Fish Wildlife.

When you take a deer down.

What's the best way to take care of that deer and get every little bit of meat off there?

And I had a buddy of mine come in and we showed how to process that deer and get every bit of rib meat, everything off of there.

So that's kind of the same thing with a pig.

There's a lot of good meat there, and we don't want to waste any of it.

That's right.

Mm yum.

Yes.

So anyhow, I promise you'll be eatin it.

I guarantee it.

So Mrs. Farmer, if you will, if you can just, you want me to pour it in while you scrunch it up.

Now that was the third time through the meat grinder.

All right.

So that's about where it needs to be.

After we're done mixing this, we're going to set it in the refrigerator for a while.

Then we're going to come back and we're going to have a little snack.

And then if you want to, you can freeze this.

We usually take a batch and we eat it.

If we make quite a bit.

We'll freeze it.

We'll make patties and then we'll take those patties and put a little piece of freezer paper in between each one or a piece of wax paper in between each patty and then put them in a gallon bag and just turn up on its side and have eight or ten pieces per bag.

And we're good to go.

That smells really good Mrs. Farmer.

It does smell good.

In a minute, we're going to pop that in the fridge.

Then we're going to start working on our lard.

[MUSIC] The whole time we've been working today, you've been cutting up fat.

I have.

Been cutting meat off of it.

We'll use the meat and a little bit of the fat for sausage, but the good looking pieces of fat that we have, it goes in a crockpot.

Normally we do this outside in a big black kettle, but it's raining again for the 76th day.

So we're going to pop this in a crock pot.

You can do this in your own home.

And again, you can go to the butcher and do this to yourself.

Make your own lard.

I bought some lard in the store not too long ago.

Wasn't impressed with it.

Doesn't taste like ours.

It doesn't taste like ours.

So Mrs. Farmer, if you'll pop this in, I will.

And this will need to go eight or ten hours.

Now, the smaller you cut the pieces.

Now it's it's a lot more work.

It is a lot of work.

But the smaller you cut the pieces, the quicker it cooks down.

Right.

So we put our pig fat in here to render it down.

We'll also for this batch, it's going to be a pretty decent sized batch.

I want to take about half a cup of water and put it here.

After that cooks for several hours, six, eight, ten hours.

That water will all cook out.

You don't wanna put the top on because what happens when you put stop on?

All that condensation, and water just keeps going and keeps going and keeps going in.

Once this cooks down, you'll know it start to smell good.

Something smells really good.

I think it's pig feet.

You're going to love those.

You're going to love those.

It's going to be your favorite thing.

Pickled pigs, feet.

Mrs. Farmer's new favorite.

So we're going to get this started.

Are you excited?

[MUSIC] I really am I need lard, I haven't had it in a while.

Our lard.

You know, you think about how precious this was to the old timers.

Pig killin' was a big time.

In the lard, they thought so much about it that they actually had lard presses.

They'd squeeze every bit of that out that they could.

Now the great thing about this is we render it down once.

The first pouring, which we're about to do right now, will filter through cheesecloth.

That'll be nice and whiteish.

The second one will be a little more savory, I guess you could say.

A little more color to it because we're going to keep rendering this down, rendering it down.

On the third rendering, second or third, when you know you kind of done, what do you have Mrs. Farmer?

Cracklins.

Cracklins.

Yes, I eat too many.

Then we make cracklin corn bread and she eats til she get's sick.

So Mrs. Farmer, if you like, we'll pour that off.

Alright into here?

Into there.

This is the first rendering.

I [MUSIC] [MUSIC] am excited about the lard.

Look at that.

That's apple pie, cherry pie, calling my name.

Cookies.

Calling my name cause I get to eat them.

That's a perfect jar.

That is a perfect jar.

Let's leave it at that.

OK, so Mrs. Farmer, I want to put this on here and lightly seal it.

You know how happy this makes me?

Oh, I know how happy it makes you.

It makes me happy because I get the biproduct.

We're gonna set this right over here away from the heat, so we can watch that in real time.

All right.

We have our first beautiful jar of lard.

I'm excited.

We have our pig's feet, which we're going to cover now.

Good.

I mean, yes.

And we have this fat that we've put back in here, already producing more lard.

Now, the second time around, as you know, it's a little bit darker.

It's got a little more piggy flavor.

Yeah, that's alright.

And that's great for frying stuff.

It's great for seasoning skillets with.

Absolutely wonderful.

Mrs. [MUSIC] Farmer, let's take our sausage, which has been chilled, you want all this out here?

Oh, let's do about half of it.

All right.

Kind of like, oh, you smell that.

Smells delicious.

Mmm, mmm.

Mmm, mmm.

Now, if you had a cookie cutter, you could use that.

We just use a small jar lid.

To me that makes about the right size patty.

If you like it big, you can use a big jar lid.

That smells, really good.

Doesn't that smell good?

So let's just cut us out some pieces here Mrs. Farmer.

We'll take these and we'll put them in the freezer just for a little while to harden them up.

Right.

And then take that piece of freezer paper and put just in between.

Just cut a piece just big enough to put in between them.

And you can put them right in the freezer.

Now they say you don't want to watch sausage being made.

Why is that?

I have no problem with this.

Now being that this is a small batch, Mrs. Farmer, there's going to be no freezing here.

Alright.

Because there's breakfast tomorrow and there's breakfast the next day and there's probably oh.

Snack?

We could make your soup you're talking about, huh?

That would be good.

Because sausage can be used in so many ways.

That's a good looking plate right there, Mrs. Farmer.

Yes, it is.

Your pickled pigs feet are coming closer to the end.

I'm so excited.

But I do have your sausage ready to go.

And look at the lard.

Look at the lard.

It's getting colored.

Slowly turning white.

And our sausage.

Oh, I took a little bit of our rendering lard over here and slid it right on in here.

Oh, I'm telling >> you what, I'm not ringing my own bell or anything but, sausage >> right here.

Now you saw what I did with the recipe.

You can change that around however you like it.

If you don't like as much sage, you want more thyme?

Do whatever you want.

But I really for my breakfast sausage, I like a lot of sage.

Any recipe that we do on the show.

It's not locked in stone.

You can do whatever you want.

There are no rules when it comes to cooking whatever makes you happy.

And these are merely suggestions and things that we like in our kitchen.

We will not come to your house and force you to do that.

That's right.

Now let me tell you about something else I got going on.

Alright.

I want you to look at this piece of meat right here, Mrs. Farmer.

You didn't see me fixing this up.

Doesn't that look like it looks like a roast, right?

Yes, it does.

Now, if you look right here, if you just kind of take a look at the shape of this, that is actually half of a pig's head.

But look at the jowl bacon in the side of this.

There's a whole lot of meat there.

Funny, a buddy of mine the other day.

He got online and says, Hey Farmer.

You ever smoke a pig head?

And I probably did when I was a kid.

Yeah.

But you know what?

Why not?

You get all that jowl bacon?

All that good stuff.

Mrs. Farmer you're so lucky tonight.

You not only get pickled pigs feet, but you have a smoked pig jowl bacon, we'll call it.

Wow.

In the smoker right now.

Where's the tail?

We didn't cook the tail?

I lost it.

OK. See if I can find it, we'll make something out of it.

So some of these things may look odd, may look a little bit different.

But when it comes right down to it, Mrs. Farmer, I promise I would never, have ever given you something that was bad?

No, you haven't.

I trust you.

I can't wait.

In all seriousness, I know how you like pickled stuff.

I can't wait for you to try this feet.

Now we'll cook them tonight, we gonna let them sit in the fridge for a while.

So I can stare at them.

On the next show, you get to try them.

I'll stare at them for a while.

That's exciting.

Work up your courage?

That's right.

[MUSIC] Boo must be over by the fence.

I hear everybody barking.

Mmm, mmm.

Wow.

[MUSIC] Makes me happy.

That's really good.

I think it might be better this morning's batch.

Mm hmm.

I like that in a muffin with some cheese tomorrow morning.

Pat on shoulder.

Kiss on my cheese.

Rub on my hair.

I was going to burp you.

Hmm.

Yum, that's really good.

Very good.

You think that's a good, wait til you try the pickled pigs feet.

I'm full, but I mean.

Oh yeah.

Oh yeah.

Hmm.

Oh.

Hmm.

I'm going to take one to Kelli.

[MUSIC] You ready?

Now here's what I want to do.

I want to take these out.

Now look.

Yum.

The bones are kind of coming out.

Mmmhmm.

If you'll dump that off, Mrs. Farmer.

Dump the juice?

And just kind of rinse them off and then we're going to make our pickling spices.

Alright Mrs. Farmer, if youll cut me some onion, fingernail sized pieces and some celery.

I'm going to take some white vinegar.

I'm going to put just enough in here.

We've got to be able to cover those pig's feet up.

Oh, wow this is a strong onion.

Shew.

[MUSIC] [MUSIC] So look, you can see this coming off the bone here.

Yummy.

Yeah.

Why would you want to waste that meat?

I don't know.

I bet Mojo would like that.

No, no.

OK. Mojo can't have this.

Here's what we're gonna do Mrs. Farmer, we're going to take enough white vinegar to cover this.

Ok. Alright.

And we've cut up a medium onion and some celery.

Let's go ahead and put that in there.

We're going to bring this to a boil.

Now we're going to put in our pickling spices.

We'll start off with salt.

We'll go about two tablespoons of salt.

We're going do a teaspoon of tellicherry peppercorns.

Then we're going to put, the rest of these are about anywhere from a half to a fourth.

Depend on what you like.

We got some cloves.

We got some coriander.

We have some dill seed.

We have some mustard seed.

And we got to have two bay leaves in there.

We got some ginger.

And that's where we're going with this.

Alright.

So we've let that pickling solution go for about a half an hour.

You smell that?

It smells good.

So anyhow, I'm turning it back up.

I'm going to put the pigs feet in.

It's going to be so good Mrs. Farmer.

You're going to love this.

And right when I'm done with this Mrs. Farmer It'll be about time to pull pigs head out.

Wow.

You know what?

It's past my bedtime.

Now we're going to let that come to a boil.

I'm serious.

I know you haven't tried it.

It's a southern thing.

I'm very serious.

I know your taste.

You're going to love this.

You got to let it sit for six or seven days in the fridge.

OK?

And I'm talking Yum Papa.

Yum Papa.

We have a lot going on in the kitchen tonight, so excuse our mess.

But this is a working kitchen.

This is not a set.

Right.

This is where we live.

This is our kitchen.

We have our second rendering almost ready to happen here, and we got a bunch, a bunch of fat back there, which I need.

Yes.

So that'll cook all night long, because that's a big, big bunch.

We'll have a lot of lard.

Our lard sitting in the window over there.

We'll show you what it looks like here in a minute.

But Mrs. Farmer, as soon as this gets up to boiling, I'm going to shut it down and we're ready to go.

Alright Mrs. Farmer, that has come to a boil.

It smells vinegary.

It does.

We turn the heat off.

We're going to take these out, and if you hold that jar up over here.

[MUSIC] All right.

Here's one.

Now all this meat is going to sit in there and it's going to cool.

And all these wonderful flavors are going to surround that.

This is I got on special occasion when we'd visit folks.

Not very often would I get these.

You can buy these in the store, you know.

I used to buy them in the store.

But I think they're better homemade.

I really do.

Now if you'll kind of tighten that down.

Alright.

Now I know it doesn't look like much right now.

But Mrs. Farmer, it's going to be delicious.

You just wait.

It's going to be your new favorite.

How about we give Kelli one as a present?

I don't know.

I don't know if I want her to have one.

Oh, really?

All right.

Now here we go Mrs. Farmer with our pickled pigs feet.

Now in a store to make them look more attractive, a lot of times they'll dye them red.

The juice, red and everything.

Throw a beet in there or something?

Yeah, it makes them look more attractive.

All right.

But to me, I'm all about flavor.

So what do we get right here?

Pickled pigs feet Mrs. Farmer.

Mmmhmm.

Now in a second, we'll jar these up.

But right now Mrs. Farmer, I got to check your pig's head.

OK. Alright Mrs. Farmer, [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] I'm going to give you the best bite.

Nope, here it is right here.

Take a bit of that right there, it's [MUSIC] hot.

It's like bacon.

That is bacon, it's jowl bacon.

Is that good?

Mmmhmm.

I knew you'd like it.

What did you like the best tonight?

I like my lard that I haven't even got to eat yet.

What about the sausage?

Oh, the sausage was delicious.

I'm just excited about my lard.

I'll tell you what.

Let's get it out.

I put it in refrigerator after it got sufficiently cool.

Let's see what it's starting to look like now.

See right there?

Looking good.

See I'm excited.

It's still got a ways to go.

Wow.

I'm excited.

It's still it's still runny right now, but by the end of the day, that's going to be solid white.

That was a whole pig we used.

Yes.

There's one of the time we used a whole pig, Mrs. Farmer.

I remember that.

La Caja Chine.

I can't even say that.

Took a whole pig and cooked it right out here in the driveway.

I remember that.

And you ate every bit of it.

That was delicious.

You ate feet, ears, everything.

Let's take a look at that.

Now [MUSIC] there are some guys in Miami that had this idea from Chinatown in Cuba.

It's called La Caja China.

It's a box a hot box that cooks this stuff.

Remember the turkey that we did?

Do you remember the trashcan turkey?

90 minutes we had a twelve pound turkey cooked.

Convection.

Charcoal, the exact opposite of that.

Four hours, we can cook a whole pig.

Now, we're going to have a temperature gauge in this animal while it's cooking, so we make sure we get that internal temperature up to 175 or so before we flip it.

We're going to put a little dry rub on the outside of it.

This is my homemade dry rub.

A little dry rub on the outside.

You don't want this animal wet.

Turn it back over.

Inject it with a simple marinade.

Two parts orange juice, one part pineapple juice, two tablespoons of oregano, one tablespoon of cumin and a bunch of fresh garlic, which we're going to mash up here.

We'll make this simple marinade.

You put it in a little cage.

Clamp it down so you can turn it over.

>> So what we're gonna do is basically strain the solid parts out of the juice.

So we're going to two or three shots after we strain it and get the solid parts out.

Now save those solid parts because you're going to want that to go loosely on the top side of the pig.

Three shots in the hams, couple in the shoulders and you are good to go.

At that point, we're going to put more dry rub around on him and he'll be ready to go.

Now we're going to take this guy.

Take this rack, set it down inside the box.

When we get him in there again, belly side up.

And I'm going to stick my thermometer down in there.

Deepest part of that ham.

Gonna rig that to come up here and go underneath of that.

All right, now, [MUSIC] [MUSIC] how cool is this that the directions are on the side of the box, you can't mess this up.

Our pig is definitely over 50 pounds, so what we're going to do is start out with 16 pounds of charcoal.

In the beginning.

I use self light because it's so simple and we're not actually cooking food over the charcoal.

We're just using the heat from the charcoal.

Now I'm not going to start counting my first hour until it gets nice and white, and I know it's ready to go.

Now, >> most of the time when you see us do a recipe it's something we've already done.

This is an experiment for you to see it'll unfold right before your eyes.

Let's see how it does.

I'm hoping this is as magic as I think it is, because can you imagine cooking a whole pig in four hours?

I could imagine it.

In fact, I'm thinking about it.

[MUSIC] >> After one hour, you add eight more pounds to the existing charcoal.

All right, it's been an hour.

The smells coming out of this thing is tremendous.

8 pounds.

[MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] After the half hour, you're going to put 10 pounds on.

[MUSIC] >> After that last half hour, dispose of the ashes, turn the pig over.

Then you score the skin and let him go for about a half hour until you get him just like you wanted.

Look at this guy.

[MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] He looks good.

See that right there.

Wow, that's when you know it's done.

That skin is so delicious.

We're not going to eat it right now because it makes too much noise.

But wow.

Now one thing we did find out about La Caja China is it should take four hours.

Now this is a bigger pig.

Because it was cool, you might have to put a little more charcoal on and let it cook a little bit longer.

You did good.

But look at that.

That's the color you want.

That's the texture you want.

That is a beautiful, beautiful thing.

The only thing is the guy got the pig from, I asked for a small pig.

He gave me a big pig, so I invited some of my friends over.

You did?

To let them be the guinea pigs.

Good idea.

And let's chow.

How about that?

Come on in, guys.

That's good.

Crunchy.

I'm going into this loin here.

Look at that.

Some more skin.

Hmm.

[MUSIC] That's like [MUSIC] >> the best.

The skin's the best.

And [MUSIC] [MUSIC] now we're going to chow.

Mrs. Farmer, [MUSIC] believe it or not that half hour's up.

It's all about good times, good friends and really good eats.

And we'll see you next week on Tim Farmers Country Kitchen.

[MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] >> Funding for Tim Farmers Country Kitchen is brought to you by Amerson Farms Country Store, something for every member of the family.

Jim's Express Car Wash, a Kentucky family owned business.

Ephraim McDowall Regional Medical Center in Danville putting patients and families at the center of our attention.

Gulf Coast Connection, seafood straight from the gulf to you.

Wilderness Road Hospitality, Stanford, Kentucky.

The Spine Center of Central Kentucky.

[MUSIC] Beef, it's what's for dinner, Kentucky's beef producers.

[MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] To order a cookbook e-mail Tim Farmer C K at Gmail dot com.