But, my resident food critics informed me that wild duck meat tasted like liver. Hmmm. It was worth a try. So I swapped-out the liver for duck meat, and pretty-much just kept everything else in the recipe the same. Instead of finishing the sausage in the smoker, I now do the whole works in the kitchen, which is very handy-especially in January when it stays below zero during the day.
This recipe is for 5 pounds. My latest batch included 12 ounces of bacon for 3 reasons. First, it added some needed fat to my fairly lean pork butt. Second, it added flavor- especially some smoked flavor- to the wurst. Third, it was on-sale. So here it is:
2 pounds of pure wild duck or goose meat.
2 pounds of pork butt
12 ounce package of bacon
Grind all of the meat through the fine grinder plate.
Seasoning mix consisting of: 1/2 tablespoon white pepper, 1 tablespoon dextrose (or 2 teaspoons powdered sugar), 1/4 teaspoon each of marjoram, nutmeg, ginger, rubbed sage, ground cloves, and allspice. 1/2 tablespoon ground mustard, 2 and 1/2 tablespoons onion powder, and 1/2 cup of powdered milk (Carnation or other fine powder-not the cheap granular stuff). Blend all of these dry ingredients together.
1 teaspoon curing salt (6.25% sodium nitrite) dissolved in 1/2 cup cold water, along with 1/2 teaspoon liquid smoke.
With a gloved hand and a rubber spatula, blend everything together, and fill the stuffer with the mixture.
Stuff into previously soaked fibrous casings. Use two 2 and 1/2″ x 20 ” casings filled equally. One 3″ x 24″ casing will hold the whole works.
Once tightly stuffed, cure overnight (or longer) in the refrigerator.
Fill a large metal container (we use the insert for our electric roaster) with enough hot water to cover the sausage. Place it in a preheated 200 degree oven, with a cabled probe thermometer inserted into the center of the sausage (be sure the cable portion is not in the water-only the metal probe). Or the electric roaster may be used instead of the oven, if it can be turned down low enough.
After about an hour, turn the oven down to about 180 degrees. It may take 4-6 hours for the sausage to reach 156 degrees.
Remove and hang outside (if it is winter) until the wurst is cool to the touch. When it is below zero, it cools in about 1/2 hour. Otherwise, plunge the sausage into cold water, and shower with cold water until it is cool.
Refrigerate overnight, or at least a few hours, before slicing.
Nothing tastes better on buttered toast in the morning. I think all will agree that this is the tastiest way to enjoy wild duck.
Boarding the train, the woman asked: “Where does this train go?” Rather incredulously, the conductor responded, “To the Big Apple! To the city that doesn’t sleep!”
My daughter, Sarah, and I were boarding this same train from Peekskill, to Grand Central Station, but we were well-aware of where we were headed. We were in New York for Peg’s mother’s funeral, and were taking a day off to visit Manhattan.
I was the designated chaperone and tour guide, since I had been there before-although it was nearly 30 years ago. It was time spent with my girl, so I was game to go. I am not ashamed to admit-even at deer camp- that this was a wonderful experience.
Our son, Conor, had advised us to avoid walking around staring up at the tall buildings, since that would peg us immediately as tourists. But I couldn’t help it. It was all too amazing, seeing the countless towering structures, and knowing that they were all packed with people going about their daily lives, doing whatever it is folks do in tall buildings. Aside from buildings packed with people, the sidewalks were flowages of humanity; all orchestrated by “Walk” and “Don’t Walk” lights at each intersection.
This mass of humanity moved from one end of the city to the other, every day, as people shopped, dined, conducted business, looked cool, and visited tourist attractions. These folks were sporting every outfit imaginable, as they attempted to make a statement of individuality or nonconformity. Sarah dressed the part, and could have passed for a native, but a quick glance was all it took to figure me for an import. There was no need for a tee-shirt with the word “HICK” emblazoned across the front.
The structures in this city are a true testament to the creativity of us humans. But I could not shake the notion that this island of humanity is absolutely dependent on the outside world for its survival. A day or 2 without power, and the whole works is shut-down. Water is ducted in from reservoirs in the Catskills; a gift that blesses them with some of the best city water anywhere in the world. Virtually all of the food that nourishes millions of people is trucked in from the outside world. All of the generated waste is trucked back out to that same outside world.
To their credit, the city has kept Central Park. We guessed that we walked about 8 miles that day, going with the current on the packed sidewalks. But when we stepped into Central Park, that world melted away. There was just a soft background hum of the bustle. Even the ever-present sirens were muted. It was a refuge, and a beautiful one at that. The exposed bedrock formations among the hardwoods are reminders of what this island looked like before it became a popular sea port.
How long can the most unsustainable place on earth go without sleep? Who knows. But one trend that I find encouraging is emerging. There is a new breed of farmer coming on the scene-the Urban Farmer. These folks, who may have grown up in the most artificial of environments, are embracing new, cutting-edge techniques to raise bumper crops of valuable greens on tiny farms of less than an acre. Even rooftops are being tapped as food plots. As more of these urban dwellers become aware of where their food is coming from, and how it was grown, I see endless possibilities for the urban grower. I also see self-watering container gardening leading the way.
It’s a world away from the northwoods of Minnesota, but it was a thrill to visit; especially with my favorite travel companion-even if she did ask that I wait outside while she visited the fancy shops. How was I to know that one doesn’t ask why there are no price tags on the diamond necklaces at Tiffany’s?
The stuff just wasn’t that good. But our good friends down the road were putting up even more quarts of watery salsa, so we really had no choice. It took great skill and dexterity to get a pool of salsa to remain on top of a chip, as it moved from the bowl to the mouth, and a cupped hand below the chip was necessary to reduce the amount that ended up on our guests’ shirt fronts.
But, no more! Old age has brought us enough wisdom to drop out of the quantity competition, and to concentrate on creating a high-quality product. As with the apple sauce, the Mehu-Liisa steamer/juicer shines as the problem solver for watery salsa. Like softening apples, we first cut the tomatoes in half, then fill the steamer. After about 10 minutes the skins wrinkle and soften enough to slip freely from the flesh. While a second batch is softening, we slip off the skins, and fill a large bowl with the skinless tomatoes.
This is a 2 step process, so once all of the tomatoes are skinless, they go back into the steamer for about 20 minutes to extract the juice from the flesh. An occasional stir helps here. The lower collection chamber will fill with extracted juice-all of which formerly became part of our salsa. Check that it does not overflow, and collect this juice to save for cooking soups, risotto, or cook rice in it.
Transfer the pulp to a large stainless steel pot and add the other ingredients. Adding distilled vinegar in the past was never done, since it meant adding even more liquid. I added granular citric acid instead. It is the vinegar, however, that gives salsa that addictive tang. Now we can, and do, add it. Cook and stir the mixture over low heat, being careful that the thick sauce does not burn on the bottom. We want to heat it through, but do not need to boil it.
It is your call whether to add any canned store-bought tomatoes or not. I caved, and added a 28 ounce can of good quality tomato puree’ because I was dealing with our last (October) tomatoes of the season, which were a bit less than prime. Some puree’ makes for a saucier salsa-more like the store-bought stuff.
While the salsa is simmering, invert 5 clean wide-mouth pint jars in the steamer basket, along with the lids, and let them steam sanitize for a good 5 minutes. Remove with a jar lifter, and fill to 1/2″ of headroom. Seal, and process in the steamer for 20 minutes. Repeat until all of the salsa is canned. The recipe below makes about 12 pints.
If you still are hesitant to purchase a steamer/juicer, the halved tomatoes can be placed on a sheet pan, and put under the broiler for 3-4 minutes to loosen the skins. They are then peeled, chopped, sprinkled with about a tablespoon of sea salt, mixed, and allowed to drain over a bowl in a large colander for a good half hour. This method does not extract as much liquid, so added tomato paste may be in order. The jars are then processed in a water bath.
I am not saying that this is an approved method-just one that has worked well for us. If in doubt, follow canning safety guidelines.
Ingredients
12 cups of peeled, chopped and steamed (or drained) tomatoes
2-3 cups chopped onion (we used shallots)
4 cups diced bell pepper
2 cups specialty pepper of your choice. This season we used Habanadas- the heatless habanero peppers.
These peppers are amazing! When lifting the lid on the cooking salsa, the habanero aroma permeates, making us think that this will be a burning-hot salsa. But there is no heat, just an exotic, sweet flavor.
1 cup chopped cilantro
1 and 1/2 cups distilled vinegar
1 tablespoon chili powder (or not)
1 tablespoon all-purpose seasoning (1 part black pepper to 1 part onion powder to 2 parts garlic powder-not onion or garlic salt)
1 tablespoon of sea salt- or to taste
One 28 ounce can of tomato puree’ (optional)
Tomato broth from the steamer, as needed, to thin the sauce (I never thought I would be saying that)
This recipe negates the need for our old trick of adding lots of dehydrated tomatoes to thicken the salsa. This is a good thing, since dried tomatoes, soaked in hot water for a few minutes to plump them up, drained, and drizzled with olive oil, makes for our favorite pizza topping
Halved tomatoes to be steamed to soften and loosen skins
Skins ready to be removed and then back into the steamer
All ingredients added to the pot, and cooking to heat through
Tomato broth, an added bonus to be used for future meals
5 pint jar capacity-jars being steam sanitized
Wide mouth jars are handy, but not necessary. Steam processing.
First batch out and cooling
One piece of equipment that really shines for us is our Finnish- made Mehu Liisa steamer/juicer. At nearly $180 nowadays, it is a serious purchase, and there are glass lidded Chinese knock-offs out there for under $100. But for an extra meal or 2 out, why not get the best?
We use our steamer for many things, which we will highlight in future blogs. For making apple sauce, it makes quick and easy work of softening apples for the Roma strainer-another handy piece of equipment. As an added bonus, we get 2 quarts of delicious steam-extracted apple juice.
First, we wash the apples. Then they are sliced in half, and placed into the top basket of the juicer.
The steam softens the apples quickly. We check them with a knife, but they will all suddenly burst and foam up-then we know they are good and soft. This might take up to 20 minutes.
Once soft, the batch is dumped into the hopper of the strainer, and a new batch of cut apples is placed in the steamer. By the time the first batch is strained, the next batch should be ready for straining.
The whole process is quick and easy. We freeze our apple sauce, but canning works too, and is more convenient. In fact, our Mehu Liisa doubles as a steam canner.
Although we already had a decent supply of fermented dills in the refrigerator, I decided to make one final batch, and put together a slideshow showing folks how we do it. These cucumbers are larger than the ideal size, but then these are not your average cucumbers. Even when they are larger than they should be, the Shintokiwa cucumber remains crunchy, with tender seeds.
I managed to keep it under 3 minutes, so if fermented food interest you, watch how we do it:
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After using them for 3-4 years now, their glamour is beginning to wear off. Automation has its virtues, but it also has its shortcomings.
We found that the design, by necessity, was not uniform or consistent, so standardized directions were impossible. The wiper motor, bicycle parts, alternator pulley, and serpentine belt all came from recycling centers, and were all different, so teaching folks how to build them was a challenge.
The mechanism also does not operate flawlessly year-after-year without some periodic maintenance and adjustments.
Perhaps most discouraging was the tendency of the round barrels to roll the material into perfect balls. As the compost finished, it began to resemble a dung beetle convention inside the barrel. These spheres vary in size, from a marble to a softball, but almost always have a stinky, anaerobic center. A person needs a strong stomach to break one of these stink-balls open.
So we started thinking that maybe turning a barrel by hand was not such an inconvenience after-all. The 4 AM design sessions got rolling, and I came up with an octagon-shaped barrel that was lightweight, durable, easy to turn, and inexpensive to build.
So far our trials have shown that the octagonal shape eliminates-or greatly reduces- the formation of stick balls.
The chamber turns surprisingly easy, it is easy to load and unload, and it looks nice sitting in our hoop house.
I believe that 2 of these composters would be sufficient for most home gardeners. With proper management, the turnaround time is 4 to 6 weeks for a decent compost.
If this design appeals to you, watch our video for detailed, step-by-step instructions on how to build one. ]]>
This is a side dish that defines late summer in Minnesota, and we seem to always have a bowl of it in the refrigerator, right up until the first frosts put an end to our cucumber season. In the past, we struggled with less-than- ideal cucumber varieties that grew too big too fast, and were filled with large, woody seeds. I still used them, but had to slice them lengthwise, and scoop out the seed cavity, leaving us with quarter moon shaped slices. Now that we have found our all-time favorite cucumber variety- the tender, sweet, never bitter, small-seeded Japanese variety called Shintokiwa, we make the best creamy cucumbers we have ever eaten (as well as the best fermented pickles).
They are easy to make, so here is what we need to do:
Peel about a half dozen decent-sized cucumbers (see the photo). There should be a quart or so of slices.
Mom did it, so I continue to add the step of running the tines of a fork along the sides to cut furrows into the flesh. It adds appeal, and likely helps increase surface area for extracting water.
Put the slices (about 1/8″ thick) into a colander that will sit inside of a stainless steel bowl. Sprinkle 1 teaspoon of sea salt (or land salt) over the slices, and distribute it by tossing the slices by hand. Cover with a paper towel, and let them drain into the bowl for about an hour. As the picture shows, this yields about a cup of drained water from the cucumbers. If you are so inclined on a hot day, drink this down, it’s quite refreshing.
Use the paper towel to blot the slices (somewhat) dry.
Make up a sauce containing 1/2 cup sour cream, 2 tablespoons of red wine vinegar, 1/2 teaspoon of sugar (more if you must, but our cucumbers are sweet enough), a handful of chopped dill leaves and small heads, about 1/4 cup of diced sweet onion, and 1/2 teaspoon of all-purpose seasoning. Some may think it needs salt, too, but taste it first.
OK, so what is all-purpose seasoning? Well, if we are going to be cooking together, you better get used to seeing this, because all-purpose seasoning goes into about everything I make (see the pizza blog). It is simply 1 part (by volume) black pepper to 1 part onion powder to 2 parts granulated garlic , or garlic powder. I buy the bargain containers for about a buck apiece, blend it all together, and store it in a flip-top container. Just be sure to buy the powder, not anything with salt.
Toss it all together, and let it chill in the refrigerator awhile. It actually gets better with age (within reason).
My version is not exactly Mom’s-she would not have used anything as exotic as red wine vinegar- but the essence is there to bring me back to summer picnics as a kid.
Enjoy!
My mother, when she came up to spend summers with us, carried on this tradition by fermenting some of our cucumbers in her little cabin. I certainly liked eating them, but how they were made remained a mystery to me, until I received the book “Fermented Vegetables”, by Kirsten K. Shockey and Christopher Shockey for Christmas a couple of years ago. Anyone interested in fermenting foods would find all they need to know in this highly informative book.
Now that we are finally getting cucumbers-the best we have ever grown- I have just packed my first 3 quart jars with them to ferment, along with a jar packed with green beans.
The process is so simple, and even more simple-and foolproof- since we ditched the old airlocks from the homebrewing days, for a 4 pack of “Pickle Pipes” from Masontops. We also purchased a 4 pack of glass weights, made for wide mouth canning jars. Gone are our issues with mold.
Unlike Grandma, we do not use a crock. The wide mouth canning jars are so convenient. When the fermentation is complete, we just swap-out the Pickle Pipe on top for a plastic jar lid, and put the jar in the refrigerator, where it will keep for up to a year. Since sunlight is not our friend when fermenting, the tops of old socks are used to slip over the jars to block the sunlight.
So here is what I did today: I picked enough cucumbers to fill 3 quart jars. These are called “Shintokiwa” from Fruition Seeds. They are long and slender, crisp and sweet, and have tiny seeds. I halved or quartered them to help them fit tightly in the jar.
I put a generous head of dill in each jar, along with a crushed garlic clove. I then added a piece of horseradish leaf, which is intended to add tannins to help keep the pickles crisp. Others use grape leaves. We do not have grape leaves, but we do have a whole herd of horseradish.
I mixed up a brine using a ratio of 3/4 cup salt to each gallon of water. We use sea salt, but canning salt works. I made 1/2 gallon of brine, so used 87 grams (6 tablespoons) of sea salt. The brine is added until the cucumbers are covered, the horseradish leaf is added, and then the glass weight (follower). More brine is poured in to bring the level up to the top of the weight, which must be below the jar top. A Pickle Pipe is placed on top, and a metal jar ring secures it.
I used the same brine for the beans, but added 3 cloves of crushed garlic, along with the dill, peppercorns, and horseradish leaf.
A sock top is slipped over each jar, and they will sit on our counter-out of direct sunlight- for a good 6 days for pickles, and more like 10 days for the beans.
Somewhere down below here is a blog about fermenting leeks. Take a look at that one, since it shows the Pickle Pipes and weights, and is one more exciting way to ferment food.
Enjoy the harvest!
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My first hydroponic system-a “seat-of-the-pants” operation- used gutters, foam board, home-made net pots, plastic tubs, and a pump with a float switch, to grow up to 400 heads of lettuce. It actually worked OK, but making 400 single-use net pots from plastic cups and mesh material was a bit tedious. I also quickly learned that 400 plants can transpire a lot of water in a short time, making a float valve in the upper reservoir necessary to provide make-up water.
Those days are now (fortunately) long gone. Now we can grow some spectacular heads of lettuce and basil-our 2 favorite hydroponic crops- without pumps, or even the need to keep adding make-up water. Materials, such as net pots, rockwool, and nutrient solution, are also now much more available, and less expensive, than they were a quarter century ago.
Watch our latest video to see how simple hydroponics can be, and how we overcame the shortcomings of using this method outdoors. It’s just one more way to have high productivity with low maintenance- our kind of gardening! ]]>
As much as we like not having to think about turning a barrel every day, after 3+ years of operating them, we are finding a few things that we do NOT like about them.
First, the round shape tends to roll material up into little (and not-so-little) balls. Breaking them open often reveals what looks like a malted milk ball- except the center is not filled with melt-in-your-mouth malted milk; it is filled with disgusting, anaerobic, slimy, foul-smelling material. These would make the ultimate stink bombs.
Second, being automatic, they tend to be neglected, unless there is something to add to them. Composting requires proper management of moisture, and green to brown ratios, at a minimum.
Third, they are a bit tricky to keep operating. There is an extension spring needed to keep proper tension on the belt, which can start slipping when the load becomes too heavy.
They are a challenge to build, and an even bigger challenge to explain how to build them. The parts are gleaned from recycling centers (junkyards), and therefore are variable. No two motor assemblies are the same.
Perhaps most important-and a reason I would never consider marketing them, or even selling plans to build them-is their potential to cause injury, should an inquisitive finger, foot, or the neighbor’s cat’s tail find its way between a chain and sprocket, or a belt and a pulley.
For all of these reasons, we have come full-circle, back to the simple, hand operated composters we had built decades ago; except for the circle part. Our new design is an octagon, both for ease of installing the most problematic part-the door- and to reduce the formation of stink bombs.
Watch the video below and let us know what you think. If you are local, stop by and take it for a spin.
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