snowangel

That peperone is absolutely stunning. Why don't you live just down the block? I stuffed my venison sausages, and will grill a few of them off tomorrow night. I hope that are as good as the amount of work these were. Add to it that my kitchen karma just has not been present this week. Anyway, it was well over an hour trimming the venison. This stuff has almost no fat (and what fat there is is very brittle and tallowy) and tons of sinew and tough silverskin. My efforts did pay off, as I had a "clean" grind. After whacking everything up. I used venison, back fat, sage, fennel seed, black pepper, garlic, and dried cherries that had been soaked in red wine. In my big wide bright yellow tupperware bowl. During my last (and first) sausage grinding and stuffing experience, Diana and I did not like having the KA on the counter. It was just too high (and we are 5'7" and 5'8" respectively). It's constant with one arm well above shoulder level, so this time, I grabbed a chair that was a baby gift for one of the kids and we did it on the floor. I got the little chair and she sat cross legged on the floor (age counts). The grind when just fine. I imagine it could have been a bit colder, and since my instant read was part of a science fair project, I could only guess. It was not quite hand numbingly cold. Here I am with half of it after beating it for the bind. This is where things got interesting. I stuck the stuff in the freezer after the grind because it needed to chill further. Then one kid got a bloody nose. Then there was yet another kid crisis. So, it was VERY cold when I did the bind. I loosely followed the proportions of the turkey sausage, which called for only the liquid of the reserved 1/2 cup of wine from soaking the cherries. It seemed to stiff, so I grabbed The Book and my reading glasses, and noted that Milo's Vension sausage called for 1 cup of water, so I started adding some water, which I didn't measure. Like I said, this stuff was really, really cold when I started to paddle it (in fact, it was like a cold facial sitting and looking at it), and it never did get fuzzy, and I started to worry after 2 minutes that perhaps I was overmixing it. Oh, well. Like I said, the kitchen gods have not been with me this week. And, then we stuffed. This stuff was much tougher to stuff than the chicken sausages. It seemed much tighter. I'm also not at all happy with stuffing with the KA. Diana used the plunger thing for me, and we kept having these "farts" which resulted in air in the sausages, and a lot of the time, the casing that was on the stuffing nozzel was burbled up with air. But, we "got her done." I had one that burst, and we just cut it off and re-fed the stuff through the attachment. Oh, and I didn't have quite enough casing, so there was an emergency soak in really hot water and flush with very hot water. We'll eat them tomorrow night. Cross your fingers. I need at least one kitchen sucess this week. (Oh, and I forgot to get fatty butt that is on sale this week, so I'm going shopping yet again tomorrow. I hope I remember to read the list and get the poblanos.) The kitchen gods better start shining on me again.

No question about it. Pie. It makes a great dessert, and an even better breakfast. Also much better eaten than cake in ones skivvies over the kitchen sink. Pie all the way. In fact, my kids share my love of pie. They'd much rather have a birthday pie than cake. In fact, when we cleaned out my grandmother's house after she died, there were only three things I wanted: her pie tins, her copy of the Farm Journal Complete Pie Cookbook and her Christmas Cactus (unrelated, but a gift to her on her wedding day from her grandmother). Pie. Sweet or savory. In fact, I have included several pie recipes (courtesy of my grandmother's recipe box) in Recipe Gullet!

Thanks, Eli, for the advice. We did love that it is such a "high" quiche, but I think your version just might be a little more popular with Diana. And, as it happened, my folks were just in Berkeley, and my mom called me from Sur La Table, so I now have a ring mold! I will definitely try this again. Seems to me that this would be a good thing for me to take to the cabin for dinner on that first night when I want to wander around and look at everything and not cook!

Stupidest question of the week. I whacked up that vension yesterday and stuck it in a bag. It has leaked blood (in the bad, not in the fridge). Can I assume I should just include the blood in the sausage? I'm talking about 1/3-1/2 cup.

I just canned (well, a couple of months ago) a habernero citrus marmalade for gift giving and consumption. I was faced with a boatload of oranges and grapefruit picked fresh from trees in Arizona -- a thank you gift. I made some of it spicier and some of it tamer and remembered to lable them appropriately. I can periodically, but I no longer can tomatoes. That standing in the kitchen over those boiling hot pots of water in the hottest weeks of the summer... My grandmother once told me a couple of things. When farm wives got their first deep freezes, they quit canning tomatoes. Just toss them in the freezer, skin and all. When it comes time to use them (in chili, sauces, whatever), run them under hot water and the skins come right off. Stick them in the sauce or chili, frozen. They will thaw fast, and can be forked apart. The other thing she told me is that if they'd had great sewing machines way back when, they sure as hell wouldn't have been hand sewing all of their quilts. What I can now tends to be more involved and elaborate than just plain veg or fruit. Also, don't overlook the Farm Journal Freezing and Canning Book.

Oh, Chris, it is. I just wished I'd added a couple more ramps to my pizza. Thursday, I will be right by Holy Land Deli, which makes a superb pita that is very suitable for use as a pizza crust. They are just down the street from a coop that will have ramps. You can guess what I'll be having for my breakfast/lunch for the next days following that. It is an unbeatable combo.

We had the quiche tonight, with a salad and a ton of roasted veg. I reheated the quiche in the oven, as per instructions. Comments. It was a good quiche. One child complained that it was too creamy. There was way too much bacon, which sort of sank. And, careful as I was not to roll the crust too thin, I did have a tear, which I patched, but which still leaked. I made this in my 9" x 2" springform. At least the sheet pan contained what leaked out, which I estimated to only to be only about 1/2 cup. I fought this thing the whole way, starting with blind baking the crust and getting bumped and almost starting a fire in the ove. I did not add the onions, and I'm glad. My family prefers a quiche that is lighter on the add-ins! Oh, and let's not mention that this thing (Peter, age 10, is taking a nutrition thing in his health class) calls for 8 oz of butter, 2 cups each of cream and milk, 6 eggs, cheese and a pound of bacon. But, I might do this one again!

And the hog is winning. I'm off this week to find some nice fatty butt for the pork/poblano sausages. They reek "make me." But first, to the venison!

One of the things we've sort of figured out on all of the other smoking topics (which are all outdoor smoking, not stovetop, is that we want the temp of the smoker to be as low as possible for the initial part of the smoke, and the meat should be as cold as possible when going onto the smoker, and the common agreement is that the meat quits absorbing smoke when the surface gets to about 140 (F). And, for a long smoke, mesquite is often not the preferred as it can lend an almost bitter, too smoky taste, but I'd imagine that things are different stove top. I have been smoking with hickory (outdoor smoker) for years, and have just come into a pick-up truck load of apple, and there is a different flavor. Slightly sweeter.

Ron, how fine did you grind for the andouille? Or, did you just cube the butt and stuff? I'm putting the venison in with the back fat tonight. fifi's nephew raved about a venison and back fat sausage with sage and fennel, with some garlic and black pepper, and I'm going to add the cherries. Grind and stuff tomorrow.

Beautiful, Dave. These are a wonderful sausage, aren't they? Talk about your fat. I mean the fat in the sausage.

I am making the quiche. I sure hope it's worth it. This thing has taken forever to make, and is an unbelievable task. Let's see. I have 1/2 hour into the crust. Let's add cutting up and rendering the lardons. I left out the confit onions becuase Heidi whould refuse it. ROlling out the crust. Blind baking, which took about 15 minutes longer than the recipe, and his 20 minutes after removing the blind baking stuff (let's not forget to mention that I didn't have enough blind baking beans so had to use rice too, and a kid bumped me as I was putting it in the oven so I had raw rice all over the oven floor which has filled my house with smoke). Whew. I had the lardons done this afternooon as well as the crust rolled and in the pan this afternoon. At 7:00 pm I started with the baking process, and I have another 45 minutes before I start checking the thing, pull it and cool it before I stick it in the fridge. My family is looking at me and thinking any quiche that takes this much time sure as hell better be worth it. Report on the finished product tomorrow night. But, in the meantime, a question on the reheating. Since we are likely to devour the whole thing tomorrow night (or almost all of it), any advice as to reheating an entire quiche? Or, should I just serve it room temp?

The dough does have olive oil, and also has milk (in addition to water). It is very easy to work with, and one of the things about this dough that is so pleasing is that if I pre-bake a crust slightly before topping, it gets cracker crisp. But, if I don't prebake a crust and make it a little thicker, it has that local pizza joint quality that my kids adore. So, one dough can please many!

An annual event. Ramp and anchovy pizza. Pizza is a fab vehicle for ramps. I once again used the Americana dough from American Pie, and did remember to reduce the sugar to 1 T (from 3) which made it just flat perfect. I pre-baked the crusts for a few minutes before topping, and I just loved the crispy of my crust, and the chew of the "rim." Pizza night is really fun. It gets the kids in the kitchen, smooching out the dough rounds, topping them, etc. Get the kids in the kitchen and working!

Bob, beautiful and a lot of ramps. Can I ask how much per bunch? We're running $2.99/bunch. Our ramps (I'll try and remember to take a pic of them before cooking tomorrow when I get more) have a purplishing tinge where the bulb meets the leaf. Saturday and Sunday nights, we had tangles of grilled wild ramps done on the grill. Tonight was very cool and rainy, and made me do the yearly treat --- wild ramp and anchovy pizza. This is a wonderful use of ramps. The kids and I are talking about a Asian-inspired stir fry tomorrow night using ramps and some sort of meat.

I'm finally getting around to my vension sausage. Wow, that meat is full of sinew and tendons. It took well over an hour to get the 3.5 pounds trimmed and ready. Some questions: I'm doing a riff on the turkey with dried cherry sausage. Should I use red wine or red wine vinegar? Some recipes call for wine, some for vinegar. Could use some guidance. I'm prepping to up up the back fat, which has skin attached. I'm sure I should remove the skin, but wondering what to do with the skin. Advice, please!

Ramps are here! My kids were so excited. Between my best friend and me, we pretty much wiped out the supply at Mississippi Market. Grilled, with grilled zucchini, some so-so tomatoes, and some awesome homemade chicken sausages. Daily sightings of ramps to come at our house!

I made some chicken/basil/tomato sausages. They are very yummy, but when one bursts on the grill... Diana was reminded of the movie "Temors."

We grilled the last of my chicken sausages tonight. Again, they are wonderful, but like I said, next time I will aim for colder when grinding and binding, and perhaps add more fat. But, I must admit that one of the most useful tips I have received from this book is the advice on what temp at which one should pull the sausages. As Diana said "I think one reason I don't like a lot of sausages is because they are waaaayyyy overcooked." Well said, Diana.

Chris, it looks beautiful, even though it did need a bit more time. When you wrapped it in foil, where did you stash it? I'm in the habit of not removing until 190 (and usually a bit higher because I usually am drinking beer and miss that 190 mark). Backtrack. Once I've moved out of the stall, I turn the light on in my oven (or, if I forget to do that, I turn it on to 100 for a few minutes) and stash my butt in the oven. One of the things I think I would change next time, Chris, is to get a bone in butt. There's something about that bone wiggle test that is much more reliable than the temp thing. In fact, with a bone in butt, I have been known to just eliminate the thermometer altogether, but that's a different story (mostly happens up at the cabin when I forget to bring a meat thermometer). BTW, nice butt crack.

Pull at 190, 195 and foil it, and it will raise to the 210/225. Thanks for my belly laugh of the day. Edited to add: Where is your damned butt? Why haven't we seen a great photo of your cracked butt?

Chris, I'm lusting after your butt. It's been way too long since I smoked a butt! Let us know when your butt has stalled!

So, I resorted to a recipe card in my great-great-grandmother's recipe file, as well as the "Woman's Favorite Cookbook." The latter comes complete with instructions on how to escape from a burning house. The recipes are all in prose, and all very inexact, and assume that you know how to can, butcher, and put stuff up. So, I laundered the linens in my front loader washer (much gentler than the center agitator type) with a tidge of laundry detergent and some 20 Team Mule borax. I had forgotten about that wonder in between cloth diapers and now. Bingo! I laid them out until damp, and since I couldn't iron them when the time was right, did what my grandmother always did. Put them in plastic and stuck them in the freezer. They are now ironed, and my great grandmother, who embroidered them, would be proud. They look almost starched, but feel better than if they'd been startched. They are clean, ironed, squared. I did break with tradition and didn't fold, but rolled them around empty gift wrap paper tubes. My friend's call me prairie stock. I'll be making sausages in the next couple of days.

28 days from now, we will be having cocktails on the deck, but who's counting? (Peter is counting. We're at just less than 672 hours.) The week before I will smoke some bacon for a breakfast. I'm also thinking of making some breakfast sausage for another breakfast, and making some sausages for one of the dinners, and taking some pre-smoked meat (brisket?) for another of the dinners. We may be doing a taste testing of a variety of home-made chicken and venison sausages. I'm all over making these weekends as easy as possible so we can savor every essence.

No, Dave, feel free to turn the clock back to belly. I'm thinking that other 12 pounder needs to come out fairly soon and get baconed. Have you been poking your belly with a finger daily? That's what I did, and when it started to firm up, I smoked it. I probably smoked it too early; I was impatient. And, if my bacon supply runs out before I do another batch, I'll be impatient, too. I guess the question is just how firm should this be after the cure? My one comment, Dave, is I didn't bother squaring anything up. I just sort of figured that all of the extra bits that were hanging over or not quite square would find a use, and the idea of not smoking a square cm of this stuff would be a waste. And, I was right. I'd be changing that direction is a re-issue of the book. Since I squared it off after the fact, I had all sorts of wonderful nibbly bits for salads, pasta, etc. Sorry, no answers about freezing the cured stuff. My immediate reaction would be that if you can smoke it tomorrow, do so.