Sausage

Adam and I discovered that we have a lot of meat in the freezer.  A LOT of meat.  We've been trying to cook through most of it this winter, but there's only two of us.  Compounding that is the fact that most of the chicken and turkey we have is from birds that were butchered when they were way too mature, so they're really only good for soups that cook for a day and a half.  Or sausage.

(Turkey with marjoram, white wine, sage, and garlic)

We have quite a few sausage books and a lot of recipes that we've been meaning to get around to "someday," so this weekend we broke out the grinder and got to work making some freezer space.

  We used the Kitchenaid meat grinder attachment for part of the batches.  We discovered that we did not have the sausage stuffer attachment that we thought we had, but luckily Adam's parents had an electric grinder/stuffer and we were able to finish using that.  I have to say that while the Kitchenaid attachments do a lot of things really really well- sausage grinding is not one of their finer things.  The electric grinder/stuffer did a much better and faster job than the Kitchenaid did.  It would probably work just fine if you're only breaking it out once in awhile, but if you have any intention of making sausages on a semi-regular basis, a grinder/stuffer that is designed solely for that purpose is probably the way to go.

We found natural sausage casings at Weis, which was really lucky.  Adam had a LOT of fun playing with intestines, probably more fun than any person should have.  But he did a pretty amazing job of stuffing for his first time- hardly any air bubbles.  

Southwestern Turkey with jalapeno, chipotle pepper, and cumin.  This one was our favorite!

Up next we're also going to do an Italian turkey and a Roman chicken sausage with peppers and Romano cheese.

Too much cute

I just had to share this picture of one of my favorite signs of spring: lambs!

This gorgeous little Romney girl isn't ours but belongs to Adam's parents' farm, Wolle Bulle Romneys.  That fuzzy face!  Those ears!  It almost makes you believe spring really is on the way, rather than another 5 inches of snow.  Winter just couldn't leave without getting in a parting shot.

Garden, Day 20

We've got tiny plants!

Now, to be fair, a lot of them are weeds.  Adam used some very composted dirt from the barn floor and there were hay seeds in it, among other things.  The front tray is Romanian peppers, leeks and herbs, and we know at least the right two rows are weeded properly.  The far left we're waiting to see what else pops up before we start yanking out seedlings.  The back tray is completely peppers, but we're being cautious before we start weeding that one.

  

The back tray is about 32 tomatoes, with the same weed issue as the other flats.  Adam was worried that we might have issues with them (and also that 32 wouldn't be enough tomatoes) so the storage bin turned impromptu greenhouse has an additional 45 that we planted today in plain potting soil.  We should be good on tomatoes!  Also present are an annoyed Thora and Maddie, wondering why I'm playing with the dirt and they're not allowed to.

A splash of color

The weather keeps promising to warm up and then chickening out at the last second.  We got snow again today, hopefully for the last time for a bit.  But after snow storm after snow storm, the outside is looking a little... bland.  So inside the mill we started dyeing some of our new, skinnier sock yarns.

Daybreak and Rainbow Connection

The always popular Sea Glass

We've also been working on these guys:

It's really a joint project, and it's been something nice to work on during the bitterly cold days when we're struggling to get the mill's humidity high enough to keep the machines working.  Adam makes the felt out of the cleanout from both the dehairer and the carder.  I sew the bears together and he helps joint the arms and legs.  It helps keep the excess fluff out the mill, so that we have bearly any waste. We're hoping to have a bunch for the festivals this year, which seem to be approaching really fast!