How the Sausage is Made

I think it’s been a few years since I made my own sausage. It’s fun to do things the old-fashioned way sometimes, but I think I’ll leave it to the professionals next time! You can see my sizes are pretty irregular (sausage is a tricky 

Russian Tea Party

Made a lovely selection of zakuski for afternoon tea with @onstad and @lifeandmarmalade yesterday — from the top: roasted peppers in adjika and krestianskaya sausage (both store-bought from Roman Russian Market), white cheddar, mustard, turmeric pickled eggs, pickled beets, homegrown cornichons, dark rye, tomato-cucumber salad, 

Not Ready for This Jelly

Molly and Kai had me back on Make Me Smart to make a prediction for 2018! You heard it here first, folks: aspic is going to make a comeback.  

Lazy Choucroute Garnis

Made easy/lazy choucroute garnis tonight with *gasp* store-bought sauerkraut that I doctored up with diced @nueskes ham, caraway seeds, juniper berries, and a spoonful of my homemade dill pickle mustard (protip: purée the garlicky, seedy dregs of your jars of pickles instead of dumping them). 

Guanciale (oh, oh)

(To the tune of “Volare”) Got my guanciale hung in the very sophisticated curing setup in my basement (the basement is 60F and 61% humidity, which isn’t too bad). Not pictured is the small, weak fan blowing a gentle breeze in the guanciale’s general direction. 

Cassoulet

Toulouse-style cassoulet: Dear lord, what an undertaking. Even if I *hadn’t* accidentally unearthed a whole pig’s head to add to my weekend workload, cassoulet is a fucking Project. I simplified it somewhat to spare myself the trauma: making what is basically French tare saves a