Welcome to my little world

Welcome to my little world. I have set up this blog to keep you apprised of what I'm working on in the Kitchen. This week I made a spicy Italian Sausage and started a Sauerkraut. The Sausage was served on mashed potato with roasted poblano pepper. It turned out so nice that we even ate the piece I was saving for the neighbor. This second time I made sausage, the first being last weekend when I attempted a Bratwurst. It turned out okay, it was sort of a cross between a Brat and a Polish because I added garlic and some smoked pork belly (bacon). And since we are moving backwards in time, two weeks before the Brat experiment I cured my first pork belly. It sat in a brine cure for a week then I hot smoked it for three hours on the Weber Smoky Mountain (WSM). It turned out okay the neighbor said it needed more smoke.

So I guess that should get you caught up. I have been smoking and barbecuing in for the last five years (the WSM is my smoker of choice); but recently I everything changed when a good friend told me about the book, Charcuterie by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn. Now I am all about the Sausage, and working on cured meats. and so it goes.

A quick note on the second picture: The Sauerkraut should be ready on 17 March. It is salt, water and cabbage in a two gallon Igloo cooler sitting in the basement. The plan it use it for Rubens which will hopefully come from the left over St. Patty's corned beef. The corned beef? Well that's next week.

Cheers.