We love sausage!

On Friday my husband got his first deer of the season.  Super exciting!  I did a post last year about dressing out our his deer.  This year we did it just the two of us, which was interesting because I'm 5 months pregnant, and his deer this year was a gut shot.  If you have ever dealt with a gut shot deer then you know how stinky it can be....and being pregnant with a super sniffer....I posted and laughed about it on Facebook.  Also new this year, instead of making burger out of the entire deer we I wanted some actual cuts, so I found a YouTube video on processing a deer which I am including because I really like the way this guy explains everything.

We kept the loin, tenderloins, ball roast and rump roast, the rest went into bags in a cooler to be put on ice till the next day.  It was almost 10pm when we finished with the carcass...fast forward to Saturday morning....after breakfast we cleared off the counters and got two stations set up for removing silver-skin and connective tissues.  My husband set his station up with a stool...I did tease him about making his pregnant wife stand, so he gave me the spot with the seat.  Such a sweetie.  It took us all day (it felt like all day) several hours to trim everything up, and about an hour more to grind it up.  Two pounds of ground went into a vac seal bag destined for chili, 2 lbs is in a bag in the fridge for the Bulk Venison Breakfast Sausage and 3 lbs is in another bag in the fridge for the Venison Summer Sausage

Because the summer sausage takes over 24 hours to make I am starting with that.  Well I was going to start with that!  Our deep freezer is nice and full of meat right now.  We went in with our neighbors and got 1/4 side of beef.  So I am using a pound of the hamburger for this recipe.  Course the packages we reiceved have two pounds per in the hamburger, so I will make something else with the extra pound, after it has thawed.  I got it out last night and left it in the fridge overnight, and it's still frozen solid....gonna leave it on the counter while I move on to the Breakfast Sausage....

My first step today was to put on my new apron...it's super cute, and lots of pockets!  Thank you Sharon over at MS Purses for whipping it up for me!  She makes purses mostly, but she is a very talented seamstress!!!!

Gotta protect that bump!

None of the components for the breakfast sausage are frozen so I can just dive right in!  I got the smallest package of pork that I could, but there was still more than I needed, I'm sure I will find something else to do with it....so gather your ingredients and lets get started!  I want to note that we opted to make a partial batch of the sausage until we know if we like it or not.  There is nothing worse than making something in bulk only to find out it's not that great!

Then measure out your ingredients....

And remove any jewelry then dig in with both hands, it's cold, but it's the best method.  I didn't get any pictures because my hands were covered in stuff....after you have it mixed you can use a scale or just eyeball it out into 1 lb packages.

 We didn't do a full recipe so we ended up with 2-2/3 lbs of breakfast sausage.  Two pounds got sealed up with my handy vacuum sealer!  I LOVE this thing!!!!!

The vacuum packages are headed to the freezer, and the leftover chunk is going to be made into biscuits and gravy soon!

The hamburger is FINALLY thawed out so I can now make the summer sausage.  We are doing a full recipe of this because it never lasts around our families.  So as always, gather everything you need.

Combine everything in a big bowl, I couldn't find my onion powder, so I used chopped onions and increased it to 2 teaspoons

dig in with your hands and get it all mixed up!

Once it is all combined you can start the sausage making process!

Divide it out, I chose to do 1 pound sausages

Form a log packing it as tightly as you can, then wrap with foil, shiny side in.  I like to give my ends a little twist to help pack the sausage even tighter,  don't twist too tight or you risk ripping the foil.  Then it goes in the fridge for 24 hours....

Once the 24 hours has passed you preheat the oven, and pierce the underside of the sausage and put them in a broiler rack, or in my case a large sheet pan with a wire rack on top, and they cook for an hour and a half...now is when I wish I could let y'all smell the wonderfulness!

We went to Cabela's today and saw the summer sausage casings, which is a bit too late for this batch, but maybe next time I can put it in a casing instead of foil.  Enjoy!

One of the many things to do with Venison

Venison has been processed and the ground portions are sitting in my fridge in my turkey pan....being that Thanksgiving is a week away, I needed to do something to get it OUT of my turkey pan.  I looked up recipes for making venison summer sausage and settled on one.

So I went to the local grocery store to get the stuff I needed to make summer sausage, and to get some beef fat to add to the ground venison.  One site suggests a 10% ratio of fat to meat, so for 20 lbs of ground meat I needed 2 lbs of beef fat.  The butcher was more than happy to give me as much beef fat as I wanted, for FREE!  Which makes the overall cost of our venison uber cheap!!!  As in pennies a pound. We used the same grinder to grind up the beef fat.  And while DH was slicing up the fat chunks, and grinding away I started mixing up the sausage.

For this recipe I used three pounds of venison, and two pounds of ground beef.

One of the ingredients is fresh ground pepper, and I wasn't about to take the time using my hand grinder, so I dumped the peppercorns in my spare coffee grinder and went to town.

The spices and water get mixed together in a bowl and then added to the meat.  I did increase the garlic to 2 tsp instead of the 1 tsp they called for.  I LOVE garlic.

The next step is to mix for two minutes, so I removed my rings, and washed up real good....then dug in with both hands

Once two minutes is up, time to cover with plastic wrap and allow to sit in the fridge at least overnight, but no more than three days, mixing once a day.

Set the oven to 350,

and start forming the logs, about 2" in diameter.

You will also need either a broiler pan, or a pan with a rack over it.  If you don't have access to either of those things, you can put a drip pan under the middle rack and place the sausages directly on the oven rack.  Just remember you will have to clean the rack afterwords.

After the sausage has baked for an hour and a half, remove from the oven and take them out of the foil and put them on paper towels to absorb the rest of the fat.

Then once cooled (or while hot if you just can't wait) slice and serve!

Happy Snacking!

It'll kill you!

Looking back over the years I fondly remember a professor I had my senior year of college.  He was my Residential and Commercial Construction/Auto CAD teacher, and almost every day like clockwork, we as a class learned about something new that could kill you, from faulty buildings, to lightning, to radiation...and my favorite, Cast Iron pans.  Cast iron pans are heavy, but he didn't mean that getting beaned upside the head would do you in, it was the fact that the metal expanded, trapped food particles in the voids when it cools and then allowed those particles to rot before releasing them the next time you used your pan.  I believe that day we were discussing the properties of metals used in construction... This has not stopped me from using my various cast iron pans.  I LOVE my cast iron pans!!!  The more I use my pans for various dishes, the better I get at using them!!!  And having a cast iron scraper (or two) has made the total difference in how often I use them!!!

Front and back of a scraper, love this thing!

Last night I found a recipe for fried apple pies...of course I decided to use my small round cast iron skillet.

And they turned out soooooo good!!!

So this morning I got out some leftover meats and made up some breakfast bowls.  Start by baking your tater tots, or crispy crowns, or regular hashbrowns.  If you ever have leftover french fries from a restaurant, you can rough cut those up and throw them in the oven for this breakfast too.  I found tater tots in the freezer, so that's what I decided to use!  While those are baking chop up whatever meats you want to use.  I had some delicious ham from our neighbor, and some sausage links leftover.  There are two pans, because I didn't want sausage, and he didn't want garlic or basil.

 

You don't want to start warming the meat in your skillet(s) until your potatoes are almost done.  You can put whatever extras in that you want, mushrooms, onions, peppers, other veggies.  Sky is the limit, whatever you taste buds are wishing for!  Once the meat is warm and a bit browned, then push it off to the side and add your eggs.  He likes his yolks runny, I'm a scrambled or fried over hard girl.

While the eggs are cooking the tots should be done.  Divide them into the bowls (or one bowl if you are flying solo) and top with a cheese of your choice,  his is cheese slices, mine is an italian mix.

Once the eggs are done add them to the bowl, top with the meat/veggies, and of course more cheese!

Then dig in and enjoy!

A bit of Holiday noms

There are very few people in this world that don't like Biscuits and Gravy, I was raised by two of them.  This is why it wasn't until I was an adult that I first tried, and fell in LOVE with B&G, and learned how to make it.  Which is good, because my DH also LOVES B&G.  He asks for it regularly.  We have even gotten desperate enough to chop up links or patties to make it!

Well here I am on Christmas Eve morning, my DH still snug in bed, and me awake with my pooches and playing on Pinterest when I came across something sooooo yummy I just had to jump up and start cooking, before I even sipped my first cup of joe.  Biscuit and Gravy Casserole.  The bloggers words made me hungry, so here goes nothing!

Cut up the biscuits and put half of em in a pan, don't forget to grease it!  Those go in the oven for 10 min at 400 degrees!

Cook the sausage 

Make gravy per usual...

pour yummy gravy over precooked biscuits

top with the other half of the cut up biscuits

then cook for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown

grab a fork and dig right in!

Now I need to figure out what to do on Christmas morning!

Old bread? Make a casserole!

There once was a girl, and this girl loved a good sale.  So one day she found a great bargain for bread, and knowing that the price was just right decided to buy two loaves.  Even though she and her DH didn't eat that much bread.  Bread keeps in the freezer!  She had seen her mother do it time and time again.  So once the first loaf was eaten she got the second loaf out of the freezer and put it in the fridge...unfortunately that loaf ended up stale and partially hard...oh well...

I kept that loaf in the fridge for a month...yes month old bread...yummy...I was planning on making it into croutons, or bread crumbs...instead I got a craving for a make ahead breakfast casserole!   Most of the time I make breakfast casserole with potatoes, tater-tots, potatoes o'brian, you get the idea.  But I have a recipe for overnight casserole that needs bread...of course I don't usually follow recipes, even ones that I created.

Start with roll pork breakfast sausage, brown it then add onion

Then clean and slice some mushrooms

While that is cooking slice the bread, of course you don't have to use old bread, any bread will work

Combine the sausage and the bread, then dump it into a large pan, that you greased...and press it down.

In that same bowl combine a cup of milk, 8oz  sour cream, and 8 eggs, I used my stick blender just because I can, and whipped it up.  Then added powdered mustard, smoked bacon chipotle sea salt, and black pepper, then whipped it up again before pouring it over the sausage bread mixture.

Top with cheese

Cover it with foil and stick it in the fridge.  The next morning bake at 325 for 60 minutes or so.

Enjoy!

Almost the last meal of the year

The weather is officially cold, and most of the time the house is too.  At least I think it is!  Today I decided to make gumbo.  I used to make this all the time, when I used a box mix...tee hee.  Several years ago a friend gave me an authentic New Orleans recipe.  So now I only make this once or twice a year, it takes a long time to prep, and make.  Seriously, prepare to stand in the kitchen chopping for half an hour, and over the stove stirring for an hour, and then you are still not done...I didn't follow the recipe exactly, I never do!  And I realize that I have blogged this before, but it is so fun!

Prep the chicken, season and stick in the refrigerator

Then prep the vegetables and sausage, topping with the seasonings that belong with each step, garlic with the onions, and salt and peppers with the sausage and bay.

Then it's time to start the roux, this takes the longest!

Oil and flour in a pot

stir

when it's brown like chocolate (20-30 minutes later) 

add the vegetables! (watch for the steam!!!!)

Cook for 4 minutes

Then....add the sausage, salt, seasonings and bay leaf

Another 3 minutes

then time to add the water and whisk like crazy to get the roux dissolved!

Bring to a boil then reduce to medium low for 1 hour, stirring occasionally!

Once the hour is up, you can add the chicken, and cook for another 2 hours then skim off any fat that has come to the surface.  Remove the bay leaf.  In the meantime, chop the green onion and parsley.

Remove from heat and stir in the file, parsley, green onion and okra (if you are using this, and oh yes I am!)

You also add the shrimp right now...otherwise it can overcook...Cover, and in 7 minutes this is ready to serve over rice! You can also add some hot sauce if it doesn't already have enough kick!

Enjoy!