A fairly simple breakfast sausage mix. This is based on AB’s Breakfast Sausage, with a few tweaks I made along the way to make it work better with the ingredients I had on hand, my schedule, and my taste-buds. Since you can’t taste it until after it’s ground and cooked, this is the kind of recipe where keeping notes is extra-handy.
Ingredients
2 pounds pork butt (2½-3 with bone) cut into ½ to ¾ inch cubes
1 tbsp kosher salt (AB calls for 2tsp, but at that level I had to salt the patties, which led to a much higher salt level overall)
1½ tsp freshly ground black pepper
2 tsp dried sage (I’ve doubled this and liked the results)
2 tsp dried thyme
½ tsp finely chopped rosemary
½ tsp grated nutmeg
1 tsp red pepper flakes
1 tbsp brown sugar
(Optional) ½ pound pork fat, if you got a really lean pork-butt
special equipment
meat grinder
directions
Chop, grind, and otherwise prepare spices. Dump them into a 1 gallon zip-top freezer bag.
Cube meat, dropping it into the bag. If the meat is really lean (less than 20% fat), add up to ½ pound of pork fat. Getting the lean/fat ratio right might require some experience, but an untrimmed pork butt is about right. If your butcher trims it, asking him for extra pork-fat and explaining that you’re grinding your own sausage will help him help you get the ratio right.
Mix everything in the bag thoroughly. You want to get some spice coating every cube of meat.
Refrigerate meat and spices at least an hour, preferably overnight.
Grind meat with coarse blade of grinder.
Put meat back into zip-top and chill for a half-hour in freezer, or for an hour or two in the fridge. The goal here is to get the fat to firm up again. If the fat melts during second batch of grinding, you haven’t chilled things enough.
Grind meat with fine blade of grinder.
Package for storage. I use one quart zip-top bags, putting about ¾ pound in each.
This recipe will give you about two pounds of finished breakfast sausage. It’ll keep for about a week in the fridge, or for a few months in the freezer. Cook it just like you would the factory-made stuff, except with more mouth-watering good smells from the pan.
These are a relatively quick to make, crowd-pleasing use of venison. The barbecue sauce and egg keeps even the leanest meat from tasting too dry, and the soup mix and bread crumbs keep them from being too wet to shape. Originally written August 2008.
Ingredients
3 pounds ground venison (or beef)
2 packets dry onion soup mix
2 extra-large or 3 large eggs
½ Cup barbecue sauce
approx. 1 Cup bread crumbs
Directions
In a large mixing bowl, combine all ingredients but the bread crumbs, working as little as possible to get an even mixture.
Once all the other ingredients are mixed, add just enough bread crumbs that the mixture “holds together.”
Roll into approximately 1 inch (2.5cm) balls and cook, refrigerate or freeze for later use.
To cook, put on a grill and turn every couple minutes. Fresh meatballs will take as little as 5 minutes on a hot grill. Frozen might take a half-hour on a very slow grill or 15 minutes on medium heat.
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 5-20 minutes
Feeds a couple dozen as an appetizer or eight as a main course
Note that all the work for these is in the preparation. As long as you roll meatballs about an inch in diameter, they'll cook fast on the grill. Just turn them over when the bottom side gets done. Two or three turns should suffice to get them completely cooked.
If you're going to freeze meatballs, spread them in a single layer on the biggest sheet-pan that will fit in your freezer and pop them in for at least a half-hour before transferring them to a zip-top bag for long-term storage. They'll freeze more quickly that way, which makes for better flavor when they're thawed and cooked.
I knead the lard in by hand cause I can feel the texture better. Same with the water.
I pinch a ball of dough off about 1 ½” diameter, roll it in my hand and mash it fairly flat.
It is okay to let the dough sit longer than 10 minutes because that will let the gluten relax.
I also roll the tortillas more like 1/8” because they are more flexible that way. Sopas are thicker, because you want them to puff up in the oil.
I have a well-seasoned comal and I do not grease it beforehand, the lard in the tortillas will take care of that. If you do have a comal, you can use a cast iron skillet. You can use the same skillet to pan-fry the sopaipillas.
Not really posole, but it’s in the same family. And the recipe I started with was a posole-like soup that people from northern New Mexico would recognize. Anyway, it’s been changed, but we like it.
Serves: 4-6
Time: 6-8 hours
Active Time: 30 minutes
Ingredients
1 C chicos
4 C chicken stock
1 Tbsp cooking oil or bacon grease
1 pound beef stew meat, cut into ½-¾ inch cubes
½ Tbsp ground ancho chile powder
½ Tbsp ground Chimayo chile powder
½ Tbsp onion powder
Salt and black pepper
15oz can diced tomatoes
1 bag frozen peas and carrots mix
Directions
Place chicos and chicken stock into a 4.5 quart crock pot.
Cook on high for 1 hour, then low for 3 hours, stirring occasionally.
Season beef with salt and pepper, and sprinkle with chile powders.
Brown beef in a medium skillet with about a tablespoon of oil or bacon fat.
Add beef, tomatoes, and onion powder to the crock pot.
Deglaze skillet with a can of water, then add to the crock pot.
Continue to cook on low for an hour or more.
1 hour before serving time, add peas and carrots and stir. Add salt to taste.
Serve with sour cream, soft tortillas and maybe some cilantro or purslane.
When you bake a meatloaf and want to glaze the top (which we almost always do), this is the stuff. Came from an ancient and yellowed Betty Crocker Cookbook, but they did half this recipe, which is nothing like enough for a standard loaf-pan-sized meatloaf. We often do twice this recipe, but we’re not like the other children.
Ingredients
½ C ketchup
4 Tbsp brown sugar
2 tsp ground yellow mustard seeds
Directions
Grind mustard seeds
Combine ingredients and mix thoroughly
Paint onto top of meatloaf a couple times while it’s baking, and again as you slice and serve the meatloaf.
Based upon this simplified peasant bread recipe, this works fine for me at 6900 feet altitude, though my scale told me 512 grams of flour was about 3¼ cups, rather than the 4 called for in the recipe. My version therefore uses a mix of units. If you have a kitchen scale, you should be fine. If not, you’ll need to use your judgement.
Note also that I’ve cut the original recipe in half.
Ingredients
2C flour – I use 256 grams, which with the flours I use is more like 1½ cups
1 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp instant yeast
1 C lukewarm water
For greasing the bowl:
1 Tbsp butter
Special Equipment
Pyrex 1 quart glass oven-safe mixing bowl
Directions
Put all the dry ingredients in a medium mixing bowl. 2 quart capacity or better will give you room to stir. Don’t mix the yeast and salt (put them on different sides of the bowl).
Add a cup of lukewarm water and mix with a fork until everything is pretty uniform.
Cover with plastic wrap (if in a dry climate) or a tea towel, set in a warm area, and let rise until it has doubled in volume. About 90 minutes does the trick here in Santa Fe, but might take longer at sea level.
Grease the Pyrex bowl with about a tablespoon of butter.
Using a fork, pull the dough loose from the sides of the mixing bowl, and fold it on itself so it loses most of the air (punch it down). Scoop it into the greased baking bowl and set it (uncovered) near the oven.
Begin preheating the oven to 425F.
When the oven is ready, and the bread dough has risen to the edge of the bowl or slightly above, pop it into the oven for 15 minutes at 425F.
Turn the oven down to 375F and bake the bread for 15-17 minutes more.
When the bread is done, dump it from the bowl onto a cooling rack.
If the crust looks underdone, put the bread in the 375F oven (out of the bowl) for up to another 5 minutes.
Let the bread cool for at least 10 minutes before cutting into it.
Enjoy!
Above, I don’t specify what type of flour. I’ve made this with at least 1 cup of bread flour every time, but the remainder of the flour has been corn, rice, and rye (so far). They’ve all turned out well, though the rye needed a little extra water to be the right consistency. Feel free to experiment! It’s a small batch, and goes pretty quickly. I could see making a loaf of this every day if I didn’t have so many other hobbies.
4 cups sweet potatoes, diced into ½” cubes (or carrot/squash) (there are bags of frozen roasted sweet potatoes we like to use – 2 bags is the right amount)
2 cups vegetable (or chicken) broth or water
15 oz can coconut milk
1 tsp chile powder
½ tsp smoked paprika
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp black pepper
Directions
In a large pot over medium heat, sauté onion in a little oil (1T) until it begins to brown. Darker than translucent, lighter than caramelized.
Add broth and bring back to a boil, deglazing pan if needed.
Add coconut milk and bring back to a boil.
Add sweet potatoes and bring back to a boil.
Add spices.
Stir to combine, cover, reduce heat to low and simmer for 15 minutes if using frozen roasted sweet potatoes, or 30 minutes if using fresh sweet potatoes, or until potatoes are tender.
Use an immersion blender to blend soup until completely smooth.
Serve and enjoy!
We routinely add a Spam Single, some leftover ham, a half-pound of Italian sausage, or other meat to this. Frozen spinach or chard is also a good addition. My sweetie likes to add a sprinkle of Tajin powder to hers.
2 C chopped or crushed cranberries. Fresh and frozen are both OK.
1 large apple, peeled and chopped
1 large orange, zested and juiced
3½ tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
½ tsp ground cinnamon
¼ tsp ground nutmeg
1 large egg
1 C milk
3 Tbsp canola oil
Directions
Peel and chop the apple.
Zest the orange, then juice the orange, adding the juice to the chopped apple.
Crush or coarsely chop the cranberries. Mashing them between two cutting boards works pretty well. Add to the apple pieces.
Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and orange zest in a large mixing bowl.
Whisk the egg, milk, and oil into the bowl, stirring just until blended.
Fold in the fruit and orange juice.
Pour into two greased 4x8 inch loaf pans, or four greased mini-loaf pans.
Bake at 350F for 50 minutes, until golden brown and delicious, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
Let cool for 10 minutes before removing from pans to cool on a wire rack.
You can frost these with an orange-flavored frosting if you desire (sprinkle some extra orange zest over the frosting if you do), but we like them plain, or with a little butter.
Based on the basic recipe from Southern Living, this is pretty tasty, and as a bonus, you get a good cup of pot-likker to give a boost (and some added vitamins) to some other recipe down the road. Switching Spam for ham will require tweaking the spices, but is not a horrible substitution.
Serves: 4
Active time: 15 minutes
Total time: 2 hours, 15 minutes
Ingredients
2 slices bacon, chopped, or 1 Tbsp bacon grease
2 Tbsp diced onion
2 (3 if using bacon grease, rather than bacon slices) slices ham, chopped
½-1 tsp garlic powder
2 cups chicken broth
1 Tbsp apple cider or red wine vinegar
½ tsp sugar
⅛ tsp chile powder (I prefer Chimayó)
⅛ tsp salt
⅛ tsp black pepper
½ lb collard greens
Directions
Sauté the bacon and onion until the onion has gone translucent.
Add the garlic and ham, and get everything mixed together.
Add all the other ingredients and bring to a simmer.
Simmer for 2 hours, or a little more, stirring occasionally.
Fish the greens out with tongs and serve, and save the pot-likker for something else. It’s tasty and full of nutrients.
It was the last farmers market of the year on Friday, so I was walking around talking to various vendors, and ended up getting a bundle of rhubarb from La Capilla Hop Farms because I didn’t make many desserts this summer, and wanted to end the season on a high note. This is more or less my standard crumble recipe, with a little added sugar to offset the rhubarb’s tartness.
Fruit Ingredients
1 pound bunch of rhubarb from the farmers market, cut into 1 cm or ½ inch long chunks. In this case, it was 7 big stalks, and made about 3 cups chopped.
2 small apples, cored, sliced and chopped into similarly sized chunks. You can peel them or leave the skin on, as you like.
A dozen strawberries, chopped into chunks
¼-½ cup sugar, depending on how sweet you like your desserts
Fruit Directions
Chop all the fruit into chunks about 1 cm or ½ inch in size.
Put in 8 inch square glass pan, and sprinkle with sugar.
Crumble Ingredients
150g all-purpose flour
100g butter
85g sugar
Crumble Directions
Cut butter into flour until it looks kinda like bread crumbs
Sprinkle sugar over mixture and cut together until it looks uniform
Sprinkle mixture over fruit in pan
Baking
Bake for 35-40 minutes in a 400°︎ oven
If the top doesn’t have a few brown spots, put it under the broiler for a minute or two. See the photo above for how I think a finished crumble should look.
