CHILE COLORADO

I made some awesome chile Colorado yesterday, and wanted to get it written down before I forgot what I did... You should definitely try this one out!

Get a piece of pork shoulder and cut it up into 2" or so chunks. Toss in a bowl with a heavy amount of chile powder (like California, paprika, and chile de Arbil (spicy)), a little salt, and maybe a little garlic powder and tomato paste.

Fry the chunks in a pan with some olive oil, then remove them to a separate bowl. Work in small batches, and get the pieces nice and brown all over.

Add some onions and chile peppers (like pasillas or fresnos if you have them) to the oil left in your pan, then squeeze out the tomatoes from a small can of whole tomatoes, and add them to the onions.

Cook until the tomatoes are dry and starting to brown a little, then add a few spoons of enchilada sauce to the pan along with the meat. Cook everything down again until the enchilada sauce is dry, then pour in the rest of the tomato juice along with about 2/3 of the enchilada sauce and a can of water.

Bring the liquid to a boil and put the whole pan into the oven at 275, with a lid on.

Cook for around 4-5 hours until the pork is very tender, then take the lid off and turn the oven up to 350 for another 30-60 minutes, so the top can brown.

We took the meat out and poured the sauce into a jar so we could spoon off the extra pork heaven, then poured the sauce back over the meat.

This is awesome in tacos or over rice along with limes and sour cream.

PIZZA PIE

Making pizza is one of my favorite pastimes, and for a long, long time, I've been trying to perfect my dough. I haven't gotten it exactly perfect yet, but I really like the version I've been making and fine tuning. Here's my latest recipe:

2 cups warm water
2.25 tsp dry yeast
4 tsp salt
1 1/3 cups Semolina flour
1 1/3 cups Unbleached all purpose flour
Olive Oil

I like to use the dough hook on my mixer, but you can make it by hand also...
Whisk the yeast into the warm water.

Add 1 cup of the semolina, mix, then add 1 cup of the regular flour.

Mix in the salt (note: adding the salt directly to the water/yeast combo kills off some of the yeast, so it is best to wait to add the salt so there is less yeast-salt contact.

Alternate with small scoops of semolina, then white flour until the dough is still sticky, but holds together, and can be handled with oiled hands. The amounts of the flours are just rough guidelines, go by the texture of the dough...

Run the mixer for a minute or two on medium high to knead the dough. (if it is still a little sticky, don't worry - during proofing, the flour will absorb a little more water, making the dough easier to handle)

Form the dough into a ball, lightly coat with Olive Oil, and put in an oiled bowl, covered loosely with plastic wrap. Let rise for 1 hour. *note - for best results, boil a mug of water in your microwave for a couple minutes, then quickly put the dough in the warm microwave to rise. The moist, warm environment is perfect for rising dough.

At this point, you can either refrigerate the dough for later, or divide it into 4-6 balls (depending on size and thickness of the pizza you want). Preheat your oven to 450F and let the dough rise another 45 minutes. (if you refrigerated the dough, give it 2 hours or so to rise since it will be cold)

Oil a perforated pizza pan and stretch the dough onto it. Rub the top with olive oil, and sprinkle a little salt and minced garlic over it. Bake for 5-10 minutes until it starts to brown.

Remove the crust from the oven, add toppings, and return to the oven. This time, slide the pizza off the pan directly onto a pizza stone or rack in the bottom portion of the oven. Cook briefly, just enough to melt the cheese and crisp the bottom.

TENDER LEGS OF EIGHT

Octopus. It's a real culinary challenge for me to figure out the perfect way to cook one. It usually either comes out slimy or rubbery, or both. This Christmas, I tried a few ideas out, and think I might finally be on the right track. I'm going to part with our traditional marinated salad, but to me, just having octopus on the table is in keeping with tradition. Here is my plan for my next attempt...

Step 1: Beat the living daylights out of a thawed octopus with a tenderizer mallet.

Step 2: Gently simmer the octopus in salted water for over 2 hours until it is tender enough to stick a fork in.
*note - I tried cooking it in its own juices and was not happy with the "ocean floor" taste that resulted

Step 3: Drop the cooked octopus into an ice bath. My goal is to keep the suckers on the final octopus, and boiling for over 2 hours can turn them into mush. My theory is that the ice bath will re-solidify the suckers so they remain intact.

Step 4: Slice off each of the legs by cutting parallel to the leg all the way back to the beak, taking a piece of the head with each leg. This gives longer, meatier pieces than cutting perpendicular to the legs.

Step 5: Fry the pieces in olive oil with a couple cloves of garlic and some salt. My theory is that this will further set the suckers, while giving a higher heat than the gentle boiling to further tenderize the meatier pieces.

Step 6: I'm not 100% sure on this, but I think a simple warm salad is the way to go on this one. I feel like marinating (like i did this year) turns everything slimy, and I think a nice crisp warm texture will be tastier. I think just tossing the hot octopus with fresh parsley, and a little lemon and garlic will be perfect.

Step 7: I hope this is the right plan, but there could be several variations after step 4, including barbecuing, cooking in sauce, or marinating.

RACKING IT UP

In the past week, I finally finished my boat cover! It is now keeping the Bonnanz safe and dry, and looking quite spiffy if I don't say so myself. I'll need to post some pictures soon...

The next loose end on my list is the smoker handle and cover. Instead of jumping right into that like I should, I decided that I needed a little break from the sewing and started working on my garage a little bit. If I'm going to finish my list, I'm going to need some order in the old workshop, so I decided to build a few storage racks.

I am a hang your tools on the wall kind of guy, but I am sick and tired of creating a new board with nails every time I move, so i decided to start making some custom tool racks. My plan is to basically make some modular tool storage that I can move around as my preferences change, so one by one, I am making custom little racks for each of my tools. It's actually a really fun and relaxing thing for me to do when I have a little time on my hands. I've already made screwdriver, clamp, chisel, and hammer racks.

It takes an hour or two to make a rack, so I'm going to sprinkle these in with the other projects I'm trying to finish. The more organized I get, the easier the list will be to destroy. This weekend, the smoker cover begins....

KILLER KIELBASA

So, I've made something like 50 pounds of sausage over the past year, and I've always thought it was a tasty and fun activity, but I never thought the end product was a huge leap beyond what I could buy in a store.  That all changed this past weekend, when I made Kielbasa with my Dad. Kielbasa is an emulsified sausage that is smoked, then chilled after it is cased. I've never had anything like the homemade version. The emulsification was like a beautiful pink cake frosting. It was light and airy, and once it was cased and smoked, it kept an amazing light texture like I've never had in a store bought sausage. The final product was insanely juicy, tender, and delicious, and this will definitely be in my regular sausage rotation. I followed the recipe from Charcuterie almost exactly, except that I accidentally mixed all the seasoning together, and added it all at once, instead of at different stages, as the recipe called for. They were just a tad too salty, and I would cut the salt in the next batch to two TBS instead of three.

We also made some smoked garlic chicken sausages that are very good, but nothing real special in my opinion....

Here's a picture of the bliss:

PULLING A BETSY

I haven't made as much progress as I'd like, but I am slowly getting through my list. I finally finished assembling and wiring my trailer, and my boat is now sitting on it, slowly filling with rain water. On Saturday, I went out and bought a bunch of really nice boat cover fabric, some sewing machine needles, and thread. I got everything set up, went to sew part of the boat cover together, and promptly broke the sewing machine. Apparently, nothing can sew the fabric I bought except an industrial machine. Luckily, we bought the sewing machine at Costco recently, so it will be returned, and my life will not be ended. Unluckily, I am now stuck with yards and yards of sewing that I must now do by hand. It's hard work! I taped some plastic shields to a gardening glove, and I can push the needle through the fabric wearing the glove, but it's gonna take a while. So... that's where I'll be for the next few evenings... sitting on the couch, getting my Betsy Ross on...

UPDATE

Not a whole lot has changed in the past couple days. I was able to disassemble and dispose of my old tablesaw (I kept the cast iron portion to hopefully turn into something else). I started working on my trailer, but, sadly, I started putting it together upside down, so I'll have to start over. I'm hoping to tackle that beast tonight.

I also tried out the ping pong club nearby, and it was really cool! I've never seen such amazing ping pong players... It was a lot of fun and I'll definitely be going back next week...

PING PONG

If you didn't already know, I'm a bit of a ping pong junkie. At my old job, we used to have a ping pong table out in the factory, where I would play with one of my co-workers every day. We got pretty good after a while, and I really enjoyed it. Ping Pong is actually supposed to be a really good workout - about half as good as running for the same amount of time (250 calories/hr).

When I changed jobs, I lost the chance to play, and went over three years without playing at all. I got pretty rusty, and missed playing. At my new job, I have access to a table again, and everyone seems to play at lunch. There are so many of us that we have to play doubles. It's a lot of fun, but I miss the fast pace of the one-on-one games that I used to play. 

I just discovered a community ping pong center about 10 minutes from my house where they have 15 olympic style tables. The center is open to anyone on weekend nights for 5 dollars. I'm excited to give it a try and check it out. I know it's not a workout routine that will change my life, but it would be nice to have some fun and get some exercise at the same time... I also think it will be cool to see some professional players practicing and maybe pick up some new tricks :)

LOOSE ENDS

It seems that I've lost my blogging momentum in a big way, but, I'm going to see if I can get started again. Between moving to Seattle for a new job and raising a toddler, I haven't had much time on my hands to pursue other interests, but I am hoping that can begin to change. Over the past year, I've added a few amazing tools to my arsenal. My dad and I completed our build of a custom offset smoker, I built my first meat cave, and bought a brand new Ridgid cast iron table saw. My new additions are really going to add a lot to my fun, but there is a small catch: over the past couple years, I've collected quite a few loose ends. Before I can really get to some new endeavors, I've got a bit of work to take care of. Here is my open ended list to remind myself:
 - Assemble my boat trailer
 - Make a boat cover
 - Make a smoker cover and the last handle for the smoker
 - Build a horizontal fishing rod rack
 - Unpack and organize the storage area
 - Add a padded top to the toy chest
 - Finish and repair fishing rods and clean reels
 - Re-finish and repair rowboat
 -Once all this is finished, I want to organize my garage and build wheeled tool stands for my jointer, lathe, grinder, and air compressor.

When all this stuff is out of the way, I plan to move my interests along with the seasons: fishing and barbecuing/smoking in the spring and summer, and woodworking and baking in the fall and winter. I'm really excited to get going, and I'm going to do my best to keep writing about it.... wish me luck!

INVENTION

Coconut topped chocolate covered chocolate chip almond coconut cookie dough balls.... You heard it here first... I'll post pictures if the next ones survive for long enough.....

HECTIC AND HAPPY

It has been a hectic few months, and I haven't taken many pictures or written down my thoughts frequently enough. That doesn't mean that nothing is going on, though... in fact, being busier has spurred me to do more than ever. I am loving spending time with my wife and daughter more than anything, and am more tired and more happy than I have ever been in my life.

Here are some of the non-family highlights that come to mind at the moment....

I'm almost done with my first semester of grad school at Cal State Fullerton. I have a midterm and a final for my math class in the next three weeks. The class has been really great and has definitely helped me to not only catch up on math that was shaky for me, but has extended what I already knew quite a bit. We started with differential equations, then went to linear algebra and complex analysis. These three topics were covered in my undergrad, but they were treated as separate subjects. The class I'm finishing up has combined these three topics, which was new to me... So instead of just solving a differential equation, now it is a matrix differential equation involving imaginary numbers. I think I'm still not there with combining all three together, but my understanding of each individual topic has definitely vastly improved through the combination.

On top of the math class, I started a robotics project worth two courses of credit. I am using a lego mindstorms kit with a gyro sensor, and am designing, building, and programming a two-wheeled balancing, maze solving robot. I am writing my own code in a program called "RobotC", which is basically C-Programming with a few add-ons. The technical term for the robot is an "inverted pendulum"... it's basically a miniature segway. I'm very proud to say that I've finally gotten the robot to stay standing until the batteries run out, which was not an easy task. I ended up using a double P-I control scheme, taking data from both the gyro sensor and motor encoders to balance the robot. It was surprising to me how much the data from the wheels mattered. I could not get the robot to balance using data from the gyro sensor alone, which was very counter-intuitive to me. Here's a quick video of the robot balancing...

The other thing that I am really excited about right now is the homemade smoker that my Dad and I are building. It is made from 3/16" steel... the grill is 20" around and 24" long, and the firebox is 12X17X14". I'm really looking forward to the food that is going to be coming off of this monster, but I'm equally enjoying building it. I will definitely be posting some pictures as soon as I can... My dad is really, really good at metal-working, and I seriously think this could very well be the highest quality smoker ever built.

That's it for now.....

SHOWDOWN

After letting my citrus rinds steep in everclear for four weeks, I finally got to make my first batches of crema di tangellocello and crema di limoncello.

I started out with the tangello liquor, and made a mixture of 25% alcohol, 25% sugar, and 50% cream. I was disappointed in this mixture because it froze hard and it was very, very strong... too strong...

After taking a few days to think about it, I made a syrup of 50% water and 50% sugar, which I added to the tangellicello until it tasted better. It is now delicious! The only problem is that the tangello flavor is a bit milder than I would like it to be, (because of all the doctoring) and the mixture freezes enough that it can't be poured right out of the freezer...

With a little experience under my belt, I adjusted my recipe for the lemon liquor. For my second attempt, I made a mixture of 50% sugar, 25% whole milk, and 25% heavy cream.  The total came out to right around seven cups. I slowly added this mixture to the liquor until it tasted right... For 1.25 cups of lemon alcohol, I used about 5 cups of milk mixture....
This one came out just right! The citrus flavor is strong, the sugar counteracts the harshness of the liquor, and there is just enough of that lovely, warm, boozy glow...

Here is a more detailed run-down of the process... I'll give proportions for a full bottle of everclear:

Step 1: Strain the rind out of the liquor.... You may have to pour some of the liquor back into the bottle to get all the rind out...

Step 2: Place the strained rind, along with two vanilla beans, 8 cups of Sugar, 4 Cups Heavy Cream, and 4 Cups Whole Milk into a large pot. Heat gently until the sugar dissolves completely... If you rub the liquid between your fingers, you shouldn't feel any granules....

 

Step 3: Strain any solids out of the milk mixture.

Step 4: Add the milk mixture to the liquor slowly. Taste as you go to make sure you don't over-dilute your liquer...
Step 5: Freeze and enjoy!

I thought that there would be a clear winner between the lemon and tangello flavors, but I have to say, that I really like them both in their own way. Properly made, I think the tangello flavor would be every bit as good as the lemon...

CELLIST

About three weeks ago, I started an excellent experiment. After trying my Aunt's Limoncello, I thought it would be interesting to try making a new drink in the same style, but with a little twist. I decided that tangerinicello would have to be good, but, unfortunately, tangerines are not available right now. Instead, I picked up some tangellos, and will be attempting a surely brand new flavor, tangellocello. Just for the sake of good science, I decided to make some old school limoncello as well, so that we'll have a control to compare the new flavor to... wink, wink.....

This whole limoncello thing always seemed really complicated to me for some reason, but I was happily surprised to find out that it is actually quite simple. Buy a bottle of everclear from the liquor store and soak the rind of 10 citrus fruits or so in it for 2-8 weeks.... I used 1/2 a bottle and six fruits for each flavor.

I grated the zest from the lemons and tangellos, and got about 45 grams by weight for each.

This went into bottles with 1/2 of a 750 ml bottle of everclear. After something like 40 days, I'll strain the rind out of the alcohol and mix in some cream and simple syrup... at that point, the citrus showdown will begin....

HOW TO EAT

It's been a while since I've posted here because I've been so wonderfully busy with work, school, and my beautiful wife and daughter, but this past weekend, we took a break from life by visiting my aunt and uncle on Catalina Island.

We had a great time, but that's not what this post is about. This post is about eating... not so much the food that we ate, but the style of eating that my family partakes in. I think that modern Americans have lost something very significant in the hurried style of guilty eating that seems to be the norm. Spending time with my family, eating meals like my grandparents ate remided me that there is a whole lot more to a meal than flavor (not that there was any shortage of that).

A truly excellent meal is not only about eating good food, but it is about creating the right atmosphere and mood to enjoy that food properly. First and foremost, I believe that each person who is going to eat the meal should take some part in creating it, and should taste and sample liberally along the way. To me, the most important aspect of this is that it helps to build anticipation, and gets the proper mood started. The more work that goes in, and the longer the meal takes to prepare, the greater the excitement and anticipation will be.

Once the meal is well on its way in the kitchen, an apertif should be enjoyed. This gets the digestive system started, loosens tension, and sets the mood for a relaxed, liesurely meal. My favorite so far is Crema di Limoncello...

A little while after the cooking, sampling, and apertif have taken place, the meal can finally begin. There are four elements to the meal that I think are important. 1) The flavor needs to live up to the anticipation that has been building. Simplicity and freshness usually accomplish this 2) There should be at least three dishes 3)There needs to be an endless supply of french bread for dipping. 4) There needs to be at least one dish that can be eaten with the hands. A fork and knife do not allow the proper level of intimacy with your food, and you have to eat something with your hands to really get in the spirit of a good meal. The main portion of the meal should be liesurely and relaxed and there should be far too much food for anyone to finish.

Following the main meal, its always a good idea to serve fruit and/or nuts. Fruit and nuts are light and refreshing, and will eliminate the heaviness that comes with an extravagant meal. Again, liesure is key. Everyone should lounge around the table, picking at the fruit as they desire.

Following the fruit, coffee and dessert are essential. The dessert should be simple and not overly rich or heavy. The coffee should be strong. This would also be a good time for a digestif or after dinner liquer to further aid with digestion.

A meal like this, if done in the right spirit, should take at least an hour to eat. Be prepared - an after-meal nap is pretty much inevitable.

Now, I know that this whole thing sounds crazy and excessive, but in reality, it is not. Just because the meal is extensive does not mean it is unhealthy. Fresh, natural ingredients are key. Also, a meal like this is best served in the late afternoon so that only a very light dinner (if anything) is needed afterward.

I think everyone should give a meal like this a chance. It is probably something best done on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, but I guarantee that eating a meal the way my grandparents ate will leave you feeling whole and happy through and through.

DAY ONE

The starting shot has been fired, and school has taken off at a gallop. I'm really grateful that I took the time to do some review before the class began. I was at least able to understand what the teacher was talking about during the first day of class. The first session was a "review" of what I'm supposed to remember from my undergrad years, but it went well beyond everything I reviewed or remembered. It basically summed up an entire semester of differential equations in 3.5 pages of notes.

After about 10 hours of studying on Friday and Saturday, I feel like I can do most of what I need to do, but I still get stuck because of basics that I have forgotten or never learned. My biggest achilles heel is integration. I can do the easier integrals, but anything beyond the basic techniques throws me off.

Almost all engineering courses, at their core, are pretty much just applied math. I am hoping to use this math class to reset myself. If I can really learn this stuff, the other 9 classes I'll be taking will be much easier.

Tomorrow's class is going to be more "review", going into second order differential equations. On Wednesday, the "real" material will begin.

I'm thinking that maybe my cooking interests should shift to the finer points of coffee for a while...

TOMATOES VS TOMAHTOES

I've always felt that some tomatoes were better than others, but, a new realization has dawned on me that there is a drastic tomato conspiracy going on. It all started with this... our first home grown tomato. 

We ate it with some good salt and olive oil, and it was pure heaven... like the essence of summer had been packed into every delicious bite, and I thought, "man, this is one tasty tomato!" I went on with my life, though, not really giving it another thought... until my aunt came to visit. 

It just so happened that we had a ripe tomato on the vine, and some heirloom tomatoes we had bought from the grocery store. When my aunt pulled out a bag of cherry tomatoes she had just picked up from a farmer's market, it was clear that a taste test would be required. We cut the tomatoes up and got out the olive oil with some finishing salts...

The home grown tomato is on the left, the heirloom from the store is on the right, and the cherries are in the back. The differences were shocking, and the decisions were easy... 

The cherry tomatoes were the best plain eating tomatoes. They had just the right amount of sweetness, but still had that distinct tomato"ness." Salt and oil were just a distraction on these, and actually made them taste worse. They're winners for needing nothing but themselves to be perfect.

The home grown was my favorite, but only with olive oil and salt on it... Don't get me wrong, it was great by itself, but not much of a match for the cherries. With the oil and salt, though, it was a whole different story. I really can't think of much else that would taste better, short of having two.

The store bought tomato was just sad. It was watery, and had no tomato soul. It was hardly a tomato at all... it was clearly a tomahto, and it made me scared for the fate of tomatoes as a whole. The farmers and grocery stores that sell these phonies should be ashamed, and should be required to label their fruits as tomahtoes to avoid any confusion.

This whole taste testing experience really got me thinking, and has opened my eyes to the underground world of real tomatoes. I am very interested in this all these tomatoes that I have been missing, and am looking forward to exploring all the new varieties that I can get my hands on...

RE-LEARNING

I graduated from college with my Bachelor's degree over 5 years ago, and really haven't used most of the math and science that I learned. Since I'm jumping back into school with a math class, I decided I should brush up on all my old classes so that I at least have something to start with when I walk through that classroom door. That's why I bought these:

At this point, I've gotten through the beginning Calculus book. I took the corresponding course over 8 years ago, but I was suprised at how quickly it all came back.... It was actually kinda fun! I'm really enjoying learning things because I want to, and not because I need to learn them for a class.

The biggest thing I took away from my beginning Calculus review was that Calculus has everything to do with rates of change. It's actually really cool... The classic example for calculus is a ladder. If the bottom is moving away from a wall at a certain rate, calculus and some trigonometry will let you figure out how far the top of the ladder is moving down the wall.... You can also use calculus to find volumes of things, which is also really cool... it is where many of the equations for volumes of odd shapes actually come from, and it is really interesting to see how people came up with a lot of the equations I use all the time....

Next up is the advanced calculus book... I'm hoping to at least get through that before I start school a week from Monday... wish me luck!

ENTER NERDY

Ever since my wife and I had our baby, I've turned to cooking for entertainment. I am usually not happy if I'm not creating something that is a challenge to me, and I've found just what I have needed to satisfy my restlessness in barbecue and charcuterie. These things are great because they let me hang out with my family and give me some elaborate little challenges to conquer at the same time. Unfortunately, cooking fatty meats is not the healthiest of hobbies, and so, I often feel guilty about pursuing my passions.

I think things will be balancing out a bit more in the next few weeks. I'm going back to school for my Master's in mechanical engineering, with a focus on robotics, and am going to be very, very busy trying to learn new things. I think this is going to be good for me... It will give me some serious challenges that will keep me occupied without the use of food, while still allowing me to spend a lot of time with my family (quietly).

I've talked before about how this blog is interesting to me, because it gives me a timeline of my hobbies and interests... In three weeks, that timeline is likely going to have a big kink in it. I'm sure I'll still tackle some exciting meat projects from time to time, but, I am also interested in attempting to use my blog to help me retain the things that I am learning in school. I'm trying extremely hard to approach school with a new attitude... one where I study and learn because I am interested in the subject, rather than just trying to pass the classes.

I plan to use my blog to help me record my revelations and thoughts, or maybe even explain some things to myself that I have a hard time understanding. In short, it is probably going to get real mathy and nerdy around here, real fast...

MORNING BLISS

Sometimes the little things in life are what matter most. For me, breakfast sausage is one of those little things. I ordained my sausage stuffer by filling it with ground pork, sage, garlic, and ginger, and creating 3 feet of pure joy. It was a huge success, and I am now hopelessly hooked on homemade breakfast meats. I used the recipe for breakfast sausage in the book, "Charcuterie." It was just right, except that I overdid the salt a little tiny bit. The recipe was for 5 pounds of meat, and I used 2 pounds 4 ounces. I just halved the recipe instead of figuring out the exact proportions, which is probably why the salt was a bit heavy.

Here's my 2.25 pounds of diced pork butt, fresh from the freezer. Sage, Garlic, Ginger, Salt, Pepper, and Chile di Arbol were minced together and added to the pork...

Here's the whole setup: kitchenaid mixer with paddle attachment, meat grinder, sausage stuffer, frozen bowl, and ice cold meat...

Once the meat was ground and mixed, it took less than five minutes to stuff it into the casings with my new sausage stuffer... It was like a meat fountain.... amazing!!! The new tool really makes the whole sausage making ordeal quick and easy, removing the most tedious part of the process.....

I cooked the sausages very gently with a little bit of water in the pan...

Once they were cooked through, I cranked up the heat and gave my little babies a nice tan...

And here they are... moist, tender, flavorful.... a breakfast sausage like none I've ever had before...

Notes for next time? Less salt, more Chile di Arbol.... I used 1/2 tsp in this recipe, and would bump it up to 3/4 next time... the chile gives a nice slow, back of the throat heat that is just perfect in the morning....

I challenge anyone to come up with a better way to start a weekend... It's just not possible as far as I'm concerned.

WORM PROBLEM

So, If you read my post about sausage, you might have noticed that I was less than pleased with the kitchenaid sausage stuffer attachment.

The reason that I don't like using the meat grinder for stuffing is that it uses a worm gear (A) to move the meat through the device.

If you're grinding larger, slightly frozen chunks of meat, this is perfect, but when it comes to the soft, delicate sausage meat that we want to stuff in a casing, it runs into trouble. Because the meat is so smooshy, it compresses, and when you try to push it into the worm gear, it doesn't get grabbed and moved along like a chunk of meat would.  It gets smashed and sticks and fights back in pretty much every way it possibly can. In addition, the meat I was so careful to grind just right gets smeared inside the gear, all along both interior surfaces. This is not good. It is a pain in the butt, and kinda takes the fun out of sausage making, turning it into a holiday activity that is only done every other year or so.

That's why I decided to buy this beauty... a vertical sausage stuffer.

I want to look at sausage making as something fun and exciting, and not as a chore. I'd rather focus on flavor and quality than fiddle with the whole worm gear meat smashy business. With this stuffer, you pack all the meat into the cylinder (up to five pounds for the model I ordered), you put a plate on top, and you turn the handle. Just like that, the meat comes out the tube at the bottom. I like this because it is simple. It's like a super soaker made for meat! The steady pressure won't smear and smash the fragile meat mixtures, and you get a constant, even stream of sausage.

I know this thing is a little bit overkill, and will probably never pay for itself, but it makes up for all that in awesome. It is also one of several key pieces to accomplishing my goal of making a salami from scratch. The next piece of the puzzle is a curing chamber with temperature and humidity control... more about that another day... in the meantime, I need to hone my skills on some fresh and smoked sausages...