SO YOU WANT A LIP-SMACKING HAM by Marisa Masterson

Fall on the farm. The harvest is in. The weather has taken a turn, with mornings growing cold. It's time. Time? To do what? 

In my next new release, The Stranded Rancher, a farm becomes the setting for my book. For my characters, fall means butchering. It was time to prepare meat for the winter. With no freezers, two things became essential—as I discovered in my research. The family needed a smokehouse and a pork barrel. Both allowed for the preservation of fresh pork.

I was especially interested in the steps my character would follow to make hams. As I read on it, a discovered a type of sugar that was new to me. Muscovado. The clumpy sugar-making byproduct was cheaper, though harder to work with since it had to be separated to use. Cooks needed hammers to break it apart!

From The Stranded Rancher:

She had placed large covered crocks in the root cellar behind the house. Jack even shoveled a path to that cellar. After she washed the hams, she headed to the kitchen. 

The cellar stayed cool. Meat would not spoil there, and the hams would soak in the brine for a week, covered to stay clean and free from worms or bugs. Next, she worked with the pork belly. This, she washed, and then she rubbed pepper and muscovado into meat that would become bacon. 

Since it was the least expensive sugar, she had urged Caroline to buy muscovado rather than the more refined brown sugar. Both sugars contained molasses. Muscovado was a by-product of the sugar process. It was clumpy, which forced her to knead it with her hands before she rubbed it into the washed pork belly. Sybil’s shoulders ached by the time the meat rested inside the small barrels. 

Prior to hammering the lid onto the barrel, she poured salt over the dry rub already coating the meat. She moved the containers onto the porch. Gus would carry them to the cellar. At least, she did not have to do that step. In a few days, they would open the barrels. Jack planned to light a fire in the smokehouse and hang the bacon above it.

So, the secret to the hams? Sugar, time, and patience while the ham rested in a brine. I am glad I can head to the store to get my hams and not do the butchering!

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Jack and Caroline Poston are stranded. Her pregnancy makes trailing to Texas impossible. Instead, they head to her hometown to claim the farm left to her. A horrible surprise waits for them.

Jack can't help but wonder why such a pleasant man would cheat his child out of her property as he tours the farm with him. Caroline’s father legally claims her inheritance. He makes it clear that he does not intend to return it to her.

In a short amount of time, Jack realizes the true problem lies with Caroline’s stepmother. The scheming woman controls the farm. She refuses to leave and does not offer a place for them to stay. And as mysterious accidents begin occurring. Jack realizes that more than land is at stake.

Amidst the turmoil, Jack must turn to his estranged brother for help. To uncover the true villain threatening his wife, he must mend the rift between them.

Will Jack be able to keep Caroline and their patchwork family safe? Can he gain control of their new home, or will they be forced to leave once again?

Read the book's first chapter for free--https://dl.bookfunnel.com/ay4p1x9zo6