Good Times, Bad Times, You Know I've Had My Share

Yesterday's wedding - badassslinky and Mike - was nice. She looked gorgeous and radiant, Mike was handsome and proud, and got the gobsmacked "I win!" look when she walked into the church. What you like to see in the bride and groom. psychic_frog looked quite handsome as well as he walked her down the aisle.

I'm not sure if it's a Portuguese wedding tradition or merely a party tradition to have the desserts out well before the entrees. Either way, they were tasty and we all got hopped up on sugar. Lots of good chattage with many of the Usual Suspects and I'm very pleased we were there to witness.

Time for me to do the many things I couldn't do yesterday now.

Discoveries

-Leftover lamb fat from the curvy upstairs neighbor's cousin's free-range lambs (which are well-fed and have a lot of fat) works extremely well when ground up and incorporated into a pork sausage. I probably could have used half of the fat, though - the tester was weeping in the pan. I should have weighed the fat beforehand so I knew how much I was adding. I know better than that!

-Last-minute decision to soak the casings in saffron water won't add much color, since you only left them in for a few minutes. And maybe a bit of white wine vinegar would extract more color too. (This is a documented medieval practice. So saith a couple of recipes on the Google Doc.)

-I am nearly out of casings. Maybe next Monday, when I have a holiday for Columbus Day, I'll drive down to Dittmer's for some more. Granted, I probably won't make any sausage for a while... but otherwise I'll forget and then next time when I've already made the meat mixture I'll discover that I have only one casing left.

What I'm reading: Kate Elliott, Traitors' Gate