The Wild Rice Venison Sausage Recipe

Happy Monday y'all! It's another sunny morning in the Northwoods and it looks like it's going to be a warm one. Andy mentioned last night that if this warm weather keeps up, we're going to have four cords of firewood left at the end of the winter. I'm not going to complain about that, but this unseasonable weather does make me think I should be starting seeds any day now. Unfortunately, my friends, that day is still a long ways off.  *sigh*

This morning, I had an email waiting for me, asking if I ever found a recipe for wild rice venison sausage. I sure did!
In fact, we're just finishing up a batch of Northwoods pasties, made with a pound of the wild rice sausage we made back in November. I'm not sure how my Cornish ancestors would feel about "Northwoods pasties" which are definitely a departure for the traditional Cornish pastie, but wild rice venison sausage wrapped in pastry with potatoes, onions, rutabaga, and carrots = yummy in my book.

So I figured, no better time than now to share the recipe. Hopefully by sharing it, we'll give Google an actual useful search result for "wild rice venison sausage recipe" and spare others the frustratioof just finding a lot of web results about serving wild rice with venison sausage. (In the end, not what I was looking for.)  

Wild Rice Venison Sausage
1 lb ground venison
1 lb ground pork
2 cups cooked, cooled wild rice 
3/4 cup chopped onions
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/2 teaspoon coarse-ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 teaspoons poultry seasoning (I used McCormick's)
2 teaspoons dried chicken stock
Salt to taste

Place all ingredients in a large bowl and mix until well combined. (I always just dive in with my hands, but be warned, the raw onion may react with your skin. Don't worry, the tingling will go away after a couple minutes - the sense of having an allergic reaction is only temporary. ;P ) Run the mixture through your meat grinder to further combine ingredients, then cover bowl and place in fridge overnight. The next day, after testing for seasoning by frying up a small bit, divided in pound portions. Package in freezer bags, then wrap in freezer paper, label, and freeze. Alternatively, you can package this in casings. I have never done this; for me, it's easier to just freeze the sausage in bulk and I've always found more than enough use for the bulk sausage. 

Please note: I quadrupled this recipe, so all measurements are approximate. Best practice is to measure out the amount of the spices that seem right to you (i.e. you might want to cut down on the pepper, but increase the salt, depending on your taste). You can always adjust seasonings the next day after they've had a bit of time to "marry" in the fridge.

We use the sausage in egg bakes, pasties, or just fried up in little patties. Use it anyway you like and let me know if you make improvements to the recipe.

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Guest Post: Simple Frozen Dessert: The Semi-Freddo

Note from Ada: This week I'm asking some of my bloggy friends to help fill the Of Woods and Words soundwaves. Today, Emily, a writer and blogger over at the DIY blog The Happy Home, helps us think summer  . . . and let's be honest, here in MN these chilly May days, we need all the help we can get when it comes to thinking warm, summery thoughts!


Summer is hitting most of the US right now, so many of us are in the market for easy frozen desserts. I bought the ice cream maker attachment to my KitchenAid last year, but it definitely cost an arm and a leg. It barely fits in my kitchen, too! Sometimes, I wish I'd saved my cash, especially now that I know how to make a semi-freddo.

If you don't want to spend the money on an ice cream maker, or if you don't have the room for the big, bulky, one-purpose machine, the semi-freddo a frozen dessert that can be a lifesaver in the heat.

Essentially, it's a frozen, flavored whipped cream. It just takes a bit of of creativity and a hand mixer to make an endless series of delicious desserts.

For my latest experiment, I made a mango-strawberry semi-freddo, adapted from a recipe from A Bird In The Kitchen.

2/3 cup sugar, plus 2tbsp additional for the strawberries
2/3 cup mango juice
3 egg yolks
1 cup strawberries, chopped
1 cup heavy cream

In a small saucepan, heat the mango juice and the sugar. Boil until sugar dissolves, and a simple syrup is made. Cool to room temperature.

Place your chopped strawberries in a bowl, and cover with two tablespoons of sugar. Put aside in the fridge.

In a metal bowl, whip your egg yolks until pale and are one and a half times the size.

Slowly pour in the room-temperature syrup into the egg yolks while beating.

In a separate metal bowl, whip the heavy cream until it holds stiff peaks.

Fold the yolk mixture and strawberries into the whipped cream.

Transfer the mixture to a freezer safe mold, and freeze for 8 hours, or overnight.

To serve, either scoop, or turn out of your mold and slice!

Semi-freddos are light, airy, sweet and cold. You can swap out the fruit flavors for absolutely anything, and even add chocolate if you want to. A basic semi-freddo is the perfect recipe to keep in your summer collection!

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Tofu Tuesday Tutorial 2: Suspending Disbelief

What time is it?! Tofu Tuesday time! This is week 2 in a 4 week series.

I have no doubt that last week’s Sloppy Toes left many of you staunch tofu un-believers. Wait a minute, you said to yourself as you poked at the soy crumbles lurking in your sloppy joe sauce, that’s not ground beef. If the hearty ketchup-based sauce of last week’s recipe wasn’t enough to win you over, this week we suspend disbelief a little further in an attempt to mask tofu to the point where it actually looks and tastes delicious.

The recipe below uses silken tofu, a tofu we never used in my house when I was little because its slimy consistency left something to be desired. Nobody wants gelatinous hunks of soy protein cavorting around in their stir-fry. However when you whir up silken tofu in the blender, it takes on a creamy texture, making it a perfect substitute for more fattening soft cheeses. (I will admit, I have yet to brave, attempt a tofu “cheese”cake.)

Unless you know it’s in there, you’ll never guess that tofu is the key ingredient to this creamy pesto pasta dish. Who doesn’t love a hot bowl of basil-y, lemony pasta?

Penne with Tofu Pesto
1 cup fresh basil leaves
1 cup firm silken tofu (about 6 ounces)
¼ cup Parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
½ teaspoon black pepper
¼ teaspoon salt
1 large garlic clove, crushed
1 teaspoon olive oil
2 ½ cups slice cremini or button mushrooms
¼ cup minced onions
4 cups hot cooked penne

Combine first 8 ingredients in a food processor or blender and process until smooth. Heat 1 teaspoon olive oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add the mushrooms and onions and sauté 4 minutes. Add pesto to skillet and remove from heat once pesto is heated through. Toss pesto, onions, and mushrooms with pasta and serve with Parmesan cheese on the side.

Next week we tackle . . . loving tofu for what is. Until then, happy Tofu Tuesday and happy eatin’.

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Happy St. Paddy's Day! (With Irish Soda Bread recipe)

Rainbow in Waterford, Ireland, April 2008

 Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone! I hope today brings you a bit o' Irish luck and finds you wearing a touch of green. If not, you'd best get some green on, else you're liable to be pinched! Personally, I'm debating between pulling on my "Kiss Me I'm Irish" t-shirt or my "Made in Ireland" t-shirt this morning. Ah, life's tough decisions, eh? 

I was planning to have an Irish Soda Bread tutorial today, but ran out of milk. The result of our milk "outage" is two-fold. One, I've been forced to eat dry Cheerios for breakfast. (True story. Things are pretty grim around here.)  Two, you're getting pictures of my St. Paddy's decorations instead of step-by-step bread instructions.The recipe and story for the Irish Soda Bread is at the bottom of the post.

My family's always celebrated St. Paddy's Day.  My dad's paternal grandparents are from Ireland and I was lucky enough to study abroad just 20 odd miles from my great-grandfather's hometown during my sophomore year of college. I returned to Ireland in 2008 and now am experiencing the heartbreak of watching first my brother and now my parents head off to the Emerald Isle this winter. (Boo to good financial decisions!) Thankfully, my brother was sweet enough to share a taste of Ireland with me. A box of 12 Cadbury Mint Crisp bars (deliciousness) arrived on my doorstep yesterday.

I've accumulated a fair amount of St. Paddy's Day decorations over the years. A friend gave me these snowman a few years back and I love them so much, they're on display from Christmas through the end of March.

 Remember Beanie Babies? This little lass, "Erin," I think, comes out every St. Paddy's Day.

 I bought my Irish flag in the Dublin airport back when I was studying abroad in 2005. It's huge, so it always ends up over a door.

No St. Paddy's Day celebration is complete at our house without a loaf of Irish Soda Bread. My (English) mom found the recipe in a magazine/newspaper in her newlywed days and made it for my (Irish) dad each March. I brought the recipe with me when I studied in Ireland and I can assure you, this bread has graced many an Irish oven. Because yeast doesn't always cooperate in Ireland's damp, cool climate, you'll find soda bread, a quick bread, on just about every traditional Irish breakfast table. Although the sugar coating in this recipe isn't traditional, it's too yummy to pass up. I always put the raisins in, but you can take 'em or leave 'em, depending on your feelings towards raisins. Don't worry, even though we're out of milk today, I made a pre-St. Paddy's Day batch earlier this month.

Bantry Brown Bread 
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups whole wheat flour
1/4 cup raisins, chopped
1/4 cup butter or margarine
1 1/4 cup buttermilk (or just add a little vinegar to the bottom of your measuring cup and use regular milk)
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon water

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Sift together flour, 1/4 cup sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into medium bowl. Stir in whole-wheat flour and currants. Cut in the butter until mixture resembles small peas. Stir in buttermilk. Turn dough out onto lightly floured pastry cloth or board. Knead 10 times (or until all the dry ingredients are worked in . . . I've never had a problem with "overworking" this dough). Shape into 7-inch round loaf. Place on cookie sheet. Cut a cross in top of dough. Bake for 40 minutes, remove from oven. Combine 2 tablespoons sugar and water in saucepan; bring to boiling. Brush over hot loaf. Return to oven for 5 minutes, or until bottom is golden brown.

Best enjoyed hot out of the oven, slathered with Kerry Gold butter, but also transports well for treks in search of the end of the rainbow. Until you find your pot of gold, here's some more Irish scenery and a blessing to wish you well this St. Paddy's Day.

Irish Road, Inishmor, Aran Islands, April 2008

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind always be at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
and rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

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It Always Ends This Way !

Since grouse season started a couple weeks back, our evenings have fallen into a bit of a schedule. As I close up shop at work, Andy stops at home to get a snack and fill up the water bottles. Then he heads over to work and we set out on evening ruffed grouse reconnaissance. Some nights we bump around in the pickup truck on gravel roads. Other nights we stretch our legs on nearby snowmobile or ski trails, enjoying the sweet musty smell of decaying leaves, the way the setting sun sinks into the horizon this time of year, and the last lingering wildflowers. The grouse have been plentiful this year and we’ve already had three grouse dinners.

I also spend a decent amount of our evenings out in the woods hoping we don’t run into a moose. The moose are in rut right now which makes them plenty cranky (Andy’s experiences a few years back are a perfect case in point) and the fact that it’s also moose hunting season gives me just one more reason why I don’t need our paths to cross with a moose. After last year's experience I’ve had enough fun moose experiences to last me a while.

Mama and Baby outside Chik-Wauk Museum and Nature Center: August 2010

People always think I’m being a jerk when I say “I only see moose when I don’t want to see them.” (Well, I might be being a bit of jerk, but I am sick of being asked “where’s the best place to see moose?” and then receiving incredulous looks when I explain that there is no rhyme or reason, people see moose all over at any time of day.) But it’s true: I rarely see moose in a situation where I have the luxury of observing the moose. More often than not, moose and I run into each other because one of us is in the wrong place.

On Sunday night, we’d almost back to the truck when Andy motioned for me to stop. “There’s a huge bull moose up there,” he whispered. I gulped. Once we were back in the truck, we tried to figure out what the moose were up to. There were definitely two moose moving about in the woods, but it was hard to tell what they were doing. They obviously weren’t too terribly concerned with us.

Then on Monday night, while Andy and I had paused in a wooded clearing, a wolf let out a long low howl. It sounded like to came from right behind me. “Here take my knife,” Andy whispered. We tiptoed back to the truck. Of course nothing happened.

But: dang it! These fabulous autumn hikes of ours always end like this!

Luckily, our evenings also often end with yummy grouse dinner (usually consumed around 9 p.m.) like homemade grouse noodle soup. You can make it with chicken too.

Homemade Grouse (Chicken) Noodle Soup
4-5 grouse breast or 1 whole chicken
12 cups water
2 teaspoons powdered chicken bouillon
½ teaspoon black pepper
½ teaspoon thyme
1 large onion, chopped
1 cup celery, chopped
1 ½ cup carrot slices
1 recipe homemade noodles

In a small saucepan, cover grouse with water and boil 20 minutes. Remove grouse from pot, cool and cut into bite sized pieces. Simmer in a large soup pot with all the remaining ingredients except the noodles for a ½ hour. Start noodles while soup is simmering.

Noodles:
2 cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vegetable oil
1/3 cup water

Mix flour and salt together. In a separate bowl, whisk together eggs, oil and water. Mix into flour. Turn dough out onto a floured countertop: knead for eight to ten minutes or until the dough is smooth and elastic. Divide dough in half. Roll each dough piece until 1/16-1/8 inch thick. Cover with a cloth and let rest for 20 minute to relax gluten. Slice dough into strips 3/8 inch wide. Drop noodles, one at a time, into simmering soup. Cook until tender: about 20 minutes. Add salt and pepper to the soup to taste: Enjoy!

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