Sausage

For those readers out there that don't feel as though there is much actual homesteading going on at the Miller homestead, this post is for you!  For many months I've had a bunch of lower-quality meat sitting in my freezer that was all that was left of a deer harvested from Miller Homestead North.  I'd been half-heartedly looking for sausage casings at some local butchers to avail.  I finally decided to get serious and just order them from the internet.  Between the prep work, grinding, mixing, stuffing, and clean-up, it took me about 5 hours to make about 12lbs of sausage.  Yikes, they'd better be tasty!  I used all 9lbs of the remaining venison, and three pounds of ground pork in order to add some richness and juiciness. I turned that 12lbs of meat into 36 sausages.  I made bratwurst (a seasoning blend that came with the sausage casings), italian sausage (some of a seasoning blend that came with the casings plus some garlic, red wine, and cayenne pepper), and chorizo (a from-scratch internet recipe, minus the oregano).

Here they are drying on the counter.  Bratwurst back left, italian front left, and chorizo on the right.

I had reasonable confidence in the flavor of these sausages, but I was a bit concerned about the texture.  Most of the information I had seen on the Internet said to trim off all the silver-skin and connective tissue on the meat, though some people seemed to think that wasn't necessary.  I planned on removing it, but as I got into the trimming, there was so much of it and it was interwoven so much into the meat that I wouldn't have  had any meat left if I did try to cut it off.  I ended up just cutting off large, easy to remove pieces of connective tissue, left the rest, and hoped for the best.

Here is the finished product the next day.  Italian on the left, chorizo in the middle, and bratwurst on the right.

Good news!  No trace of any chewiness from any connective tissue.  Also, it is quite tasty!  The italian could use some more fennel (weird that I would actually want more fennel in something), but it tastes quite good.  The bratwurst might be a bit salty for me, but others (like my wife) like stuff saltier than I do.  The chorizo is probably the best, in my opinion.  Very good paprika flavor with a hint of smokiness and moderate spiciness level.  The downside to these sausages is that they are all rather dry.  There may have been a bit of over-cooking, but I think its mostly due to the leanness of the meat.  I'd seen some recipes that called for 50/50 mixes of venison and pork or 30% pork FAT with 70% venison.  I went with 75% venison and 25% ground pork, so I there is considerably less fat in these sausages than most sausages.  Sliced up and put in a sauce, I don't think you would notice the dryness.  Even alone, they are very much acceptable, which is good, because I have 33 more links in my freezer now!

The Orchard Is Alive

I'm happy to report that the orchard at Miller Homestead North is doing pretty well.  It appears that all the trees/bushes survived their transplant.  Most are doing well and growing, though the chestnuts took a pretty good beating when they started to open up before getting hit with a late spring hard frost.  Some of the apples are showing a strange wilting of the growing tips.  They had been getting quite a bit of rain, and I didn't see any sign of any bugs or disease beyond the wilting, so the cause is a mystery.  It  may just be the weird weather, but they were given a general-purpose spray just in case.  Everything else is green and growing.  The pictures below are the hazelnuts.  One close-up of a smaller one, and the other picture is down the row.  They are dramatically different sizes because the smaller ones were given to me by a friend at a young age, while the bigger ones are several year old nursery trees.  You can also see that the mixture of clover and grass surrounding the trees is growing well.  There are some holes due to spotty germination, but they should fill in.

Random Garden Update

Its been a very hot and wet start to the summer here at the Miller homestead.  Most of the garden has been doing pretty well.  We got a modest snow pea harvest.  Spring greens were again very poor this year.  The onion plants didn't seem to grow real big, but the bulbs are still in the ground, so we shall see what we end up with.  They are just about ready to harvest along with the shallots and garlic, both of which looked quite good above-ground.  Its currently broccoli harvest time.  The heads aren't all that big, but considering that they don't do real well in heat, I'll take what I can get.  On to the success stories....  We've been inundated with lettuce.  In the last few weeks, they've started to get tip burn from the heat and new seedings haven't been coming up well.  Thats OK, I'm about sick of lettuce.  Every year it seems as though I underestimate how big my potato plants are going to get.  They grow a couple feet high, then kind of fall over and grow sideways.  They have now grown about 4 feet away from their planting holes and are taking over nearby beds.  I'd better get a bumper crop of potatoes this year.  The pepper plants have put on a serious growth spurt and I'm letting them set fruit now instead of pinching off the flowers.  Should be another good year for bell and spicy peppers.  The pole beans are also doing their usual out-of control growth.  I really should only plant bush beans, but with my limited garden space and a big wall of my garage that they can grow up, it so tempting to plant the pole beans.  Of course, then they grow 8+ feet high and so dense that it is a serious struggle to find and harvest beans.  I lopped off the bean vines at about 7' high to try to get them to put more energy into beans and less into growth, but that only slowed them down for about a week.  Only bush beans next year!!

In the pic below, the beans are on the left side, peppers and broccoli front and center, lettuce front right.  Garlic and onions are on the right side, brussels sprouts in the center, and potatoes are all you can see in the back.