Charcuterie, 2015 edition

A few weeks ago, I had nothing to post. Today I have more than one post will contain. But first, let me ask you, does this video from this morning look like spring break to you??

The weather was much nicer on Friday when we celebrated Terry's birthday by getting out the grill for the first time this season. The foil packs contain potatoes and asparagus.

I made Terry cook his own birthday dinner because I didn't have a skillet big enough for two porterhouses. Is that wrong?

We made sausage this weekend. Lots of sausage. Back in February, Terry contacted the butcher who sold us half a pig last year. Alas, pig prices were very low, and the butcher was selling all his pork cut up. We decided we would look for a good price on butt roasts to cut up to make sausage. We had in mind getting about 50 lbs. Interesting, butt roasts are cut from the pig’s shoulder. Go figure.

I was out and about and found pork butt for $1.68/lb at Meijer. I bought three roasts that were just shy of 7 pounds each. I reported that I had secured the first 20 lbs. Terry said that it wasn’t worth getting the equipment out for less than 40 lbs. of sausage. Yes, I said, I knew I had not gotten enough, but I didn’t want to take the whole inventory.

The following Monday, due to a miscommunication (code word for Terry NEVER listens to me well enough to remember what I've said), Terry came home with 50 lbs. of butt roast.

Fifty pounds?? First he said he forgot I’d gotten any. Then he said, of course he remembered, but 70 lbs. of sausage was still a good amount. I muttered and grumbled and found room for 10 more roasts in the freezers.

Last Thursday, I moved all 13 roasts into the spare refrigerator. By Saturday afternoon, they were thawed enough to cut. Terry was going to do everything on Sunday, but my recipes all suggest doing this the night before because the colder the meat is when you grind it, the better it goes. After supper we both grabbed knives and cut the roasts in strips, carefully boning out the oddly-shaped shoulder blade. We filled every stainless bowl we had.

Sliced pork chilling in the spare refrigerator (the sticks in the baggies are Terry's scions for fruit tree grafting--we have such an interesting life)

At 10:00 Sunday morning, we began by griding up 4.5 lbs. to make one batch of chorizo. I don’t use a lot of chorizo, and never use it in casings. So that was easy.

Terry loads the grinder

Hilda weighs the ground pork and puts it in a bowl

Following that, we made four 7-pound batches of Italian sausage. We would have made more, but we ran out of the pre-grated parmesan cheese. Here is Terry trying to find the end of the casing.

Terry sorts though the casing looking for an end

Hilda cranks the stuffer while Terry coils the sausage.

Terry and Hilda stuff the casings

Terry twists the sausage into links (which got longer and longer as the day went on).

Making the links

We made five 7-lb. batches of bratwurst. And stuffed them. We had to stow the sausages in the “walk out” refrigerator until we had time to wrap and pack the links for freezing.

Finished links on trays in the "walk out" refrigerator as the snow started Sunday afternoon. Actually, it was a good thing the weather got colder.

At 3:20, Hilda asked me, “Do you ever use ground pork in your meatloaf?”

“No,” I replied. “But I could.”

“You see where I’m going,” she replied.

We grated Parmesan the Hilda had in a block to make one more half batch of Italian sausage for patties, since we’d forgotten to leave any of the previous batches unstuffed. And we bagged up the last five pounds of pork for meatloaf or meatballs or something.

Terry started washing everything up while Hilda and I prepared the sausage for freezing. I tore the plastic wrap; Hilda wrapped two links up, and I put them in a zip-top bag, five 2-link packs per bag. We spread them out as much as we could among the various freezers so they would freeze as quickly as possible.

We finished up at 5:00 and were glad to be done. I totaled up the day—76 pounds. Clearly, Terry had brought home more than 50 lbs. There is a satisfaction to having, by Terry’s estimation, a year’s supply of sausage. I think we’ll be lucky to get through it in that time. I guess I don’t have to wonder what to make for dinner for a while…