This recipe was originally in a cookbook my sweetie had which called out all sorts of Name Brand ingredients. It also called for making kebabs of the mix and grilling them. We decided we'd rather have a stir-fry or fry-up all in one pan. I ate mine with a slice of bread, but over pasta or rice would also work.
Ingredients
12 ounce smoked ring sausage (Hillshire Farms Smoked Turkey Sausage is what we used, but use what you like), cut into ½ inch pieces
1 C dried apricots, halved
1 can beer (12 oz)
¾ C apricot preserves
1 Tbsp mustard (we used dijon, but yellow will also work)
2 – 6oz cans sliced mushrooms, drained or ½ pound fresh mushrooms, sliced
Directions
Simmer sausage & apricots in beer in a large saucepan or skillet for 10 minutes
If using fresh mushrooms, add them about 5 minutes in
Combine apricot preserves, mustard, chile and Worcestershire sauce in a microwave-safe measuring glass, and heat briefly (enough that the preserves liquify) in microwave, then stir and set aside
Add apples & mushrooms to sausage mixture
Add sauce to sausage mixture
Simmer until apples are going soft and sauce has thickened to desired consistency.
Getting a little more progress. I made hangers for my most commonly used hammers on the door of my till.
Left to right, the ball-peen hammer I got from my dad, and which I use for nearly everything; the plane hammer I got from Kenny in the turning swap; the dead-blow I got from Kenny in the turning swap, which is proving very useful (autocorrupt wanted to “fix” that to useless -f'in Apple); and my dice mallet from Earl, which gets used pretty hard, and keeps on whacking.
Multiple projects going on in the shop today, so I didn't make a ton of progress on the till. I did get the doors planed (and sanded – pine is almost as fast to shape with 60 grit as with a plane) so they'll both close at once and then I installed the latches. I'll probably need to take a hair more off each of the doors – maybe a 64th or so from each, so that they'll still close once I put a coat of oil on the edges that meet in the middle.
I put the latches on the top of the till because I can still reach them there just fine, and they'll hold better than latching the two doors to each other.
Next up is outfitting the left door with hangers to hold whatever tools I decide need to live there, then it'll be about time to call the till done.
Before I hung the second door, I spent a few days outfitting it with hangers for additional tools. I wanted to put a bunch of my marking and layout tools on the outside of the door, and a couple eggbeaters on the inside. (The first door will get the balance of the eggbeaters on the inside and more marking tools on the outside, as well)
So, here's a look.
The doors won't quite both close at the same time, because geometry, but I should be able to fix that fairly quickly with a block plane without having to remove either door. Plus, the left one will probably have to come off at some point so I can hang tools on it. Not going to worry about that today, though.
Another quick session in the shop today. I got one of the doors hung.
First step was to measure and cut the piano hinges to size. I figured 20 inches worked about right on the 21 inch and change doors (wanted to cut between the fingers on the hinges).
With the hinge cut, I held it even with the top of the cabinet and marked where the holes would need to be.
With the holes marked, I used a brad awl to mark the centers of the holes, then used a 1/16 inch twist bit in an eggbeater drill to drill a ⅝ inch deep pilot hole (having consulted my handy chart and seen that a #6 wood screw needs a 1/16 pilot hole in soft woods).
That done, I moved to the door. Again, holding the hinge even with the top edge (thus getting alignment between the door and the cabinet), I drilled pilot holes for the top and bottom hinge holes and put in two screws.
Then I drilled the rest of the pilot holes and put in the rest of the screws, attaching the hinge to the door. Then I ran screws into the top and bottom holes in the cabinet and then removed them, so I would have an easier time when it came time to insert those two screws while holding the door with one hand.
After getting those two screws in (sorry, no picture, because only two hands), I put in the rest of the screws and it was time to run to town for our shopping.
This evening I got a little time in the shop to glue up the doors of the brace till. Yesterday I had finished the joinery for the frames, and rough-cut the door panels.
This evening, I measured the door panels more carefully (since I had made the grooves about ⅜ inch deep in ¾ inch boards, I can set the frame on the panel, aligning two outside edges, then make a pencil line on the two opposite inside edges, and be pretty close to right). So I did that and cut the door panels with the circular saw.
Then I test-fit things. The grooves were really tight for the ¼ inch plywood, so with a block plane I took three passes angled along each face of each edge of the panel, raising it just a hair. Now the panels fit into the grooves, but they were about ⅛ inch too big, so I set up the table saw with the fence almost touching the blade and quickly turned a bit of the edges into sawdust. Could've done the same thing with a hand plane, but my low angle jack plane that I normally use for trimming the edges of plywood was not very sharp, so the tailed apprentice got the call.
With things fitting correctly now, I put glue on all the pins, set the door panels in place (no glue on them), and placed on the tail boards. Then on with the clamps and call it a night.
Tomorrow I think I only have a few minutes in the shop, but that should be enough to plane the dovetails smooth (the pins are protruding just a hair) and put on a quick coat of BLO, and I can hang the doors on Friday. Fingers crossed!
Found a few pine 1×4s in the storage and ran down the edge of them with the combination plane to pretty them up a bit.
Then I cut them to length for the doors I'll need. I'm planning on building doors that are 3 inches deep, with a ¾ inch frame around the edge, using mitered dovetails for joinery, and a piece of ¼ inch Baltic birch plywood for the face.
With the frame pieces cut to length, I stopped and thought for a moment. I want the pins extending out through the tail boards which will be the sides, so I grabbed the left and right sides of the left door, put them outside to outside, and cut my first two sets of tails. I used the same layout as the plinths on my Jefferson bookcases, so I already had a story stick on hand.
With the dovetails laid out, I started cutting, and got through all four corners pretty quickly. I ended up having the left and right side of the right door upside down from what I had originally planned, but other than that, everything went well.
Next was cutting the groove for the door face. I wanted a quarter-inch groove, about a quarter inch from the front face of the door sides (in order to avoid splitting the groove across a pin and tail – putting it this way kept it entirely within the miter), so I set up the combination plane accordingly, and set the depth stop to a hair shy of ⅜ inch. I also rough-cut the door faces from the larger piece of plywood outside with the circular saw, and will trim them to exact size next time I get some time in the shop.
Over the past few days I've finished gluing all the drawer fronts onto the drawer boxes.
Today, I went to put the drawer pulls on, and discovered that I only had 7 of the 10-pack of pulls I bought some time back in Minnesota. And it appears they've been discontinued, but I found three more (I only need two, but if I don't buy a spare, I'll end up needing one) online. Only $5 each, plus $10 shipping. Pretty sure that's more than I paid for the 10-pack originally.
I was cleaning my shop this morning, and found my set of three nail sets. Rather than lose them again and have to use nails rather than the proper tool, I decided to give them a proper home.
I found a couple small pieces of apple wood, and made one flat so it could be mounted on my boring tools till. I drilled three holes in the other piece, then roughly shaped it to something organic-looking.
I glued and screwed the two pieces together with a #2-⅜ screw, countersunk from behind, so the mounting piece would still sit flat, then finished it with the Beall Wood Buffer, and finally I glued and screwed the mounting piece to the till door. Done and done.
Little projects like this can be pretty satisfying. Two hours and change from idea to finished product, and my shop is (a little) better organized now.
