Ah... Meatloaf with oven roasted turnips and rutabagas out of my garden. The meatloaf recipe is from my soon to be published cookbook Dad's Home Cooking, Traditional Recipes for Preparing Healthy Family Meals.

My Cayenne and Thai peppers have turned mostly red after hanging to dry for about 1 month. I removed the red peppers from the stalks and placed them in my dehydrator to complete the drying. The green ones were brought inside to continue the ripening. The Thai  peppers are used whole and I will grind the Cayenne peppers to make Cayenne pepper!

In my September 29, 2012 posting, I described how I made my fall sauerkraut. Yesterday the fermentation for 1 month was  complete so I packed the sauerkraut into 2 clean quart jars and installed washed canning lids and placed the sauerkraut in the refrigerator to keep and use this fall and winter. To use, remove the amount you want to serve and drain and dispose of the brine. The sauerkraut can be used cold, or if you want it heated for sandwiches, simply cover and  heat in the microwave. To serve heated as a side dish, add a small amount of water to the sauerkraut and heat in a sauce pan, stirring to prevent scorching. Sauerkraut can also be fried in a buttered skillet. When brown on one side, turn over and brown the other side. Enjoy!

Last night was Oktoberfest dinner. I made the bratwurst, and sauerkraut on the right and a guest brought the spaetzle and red cabbage on the left. Guests also brought apple streudel for dessert (not shown). See earlier posts for the making of the sauerkraut and bratwurst sausages.

I also served Marzen beer and brown mustard that I had made as shown in earlier posts. I also had a bottle of Gewurztraminer that I made in 2010.

Fall is garlic, gray shallot and multiplying onion planting time so today, with a break in the rain, I was able to plant mine. I set out 56 Roja Garlic, 6 gray shallots and 6 multiplying onion starts. These will be ready to harvest next summer. The picture below shows the location of the bulbs before they were planted.

Today was sausage making day. I made 29 bratwurst sausages to serve at Oktoberfest dinner on Saturday evening. You will need a meat grinder and sausage stuffer to make this sausage.

Ingredients
1 cup whole ice cold milk
2 large eggs
1 cup soy protein concentrate*
1 1/2 teaspoons ground white pepper
1 1/2 teaspoons ground mace
1 1/2 teaspoons ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
2 tablespoons applewood smoked sea salt**
1 pound ground veal
7 pounds pork shoulder blade steak (When cut up and de-boned will yield 5 pounds)
1 strand of 30 mm clear edible collagen casings*

* available from Butcher & Packer Supply Company, Madison, WI
** Available from My Spice Sage, Bronx, NY

The first step is to cut up the meat in 1 inch cubes leaving some fat but discarding any bone and tough parts.

The next step is to grind the meat using a 1/4 inch grinder plate.

Then mix all of the ingredients together. I used my mixer but you can do this by hand.

Stuffing was next. First I cut off 2 inches from the sausage stuffing tube so that the end diameter would be nearer the size of the casing before installing on the grinder. Next load the stuffing tube with casing and cut it off. Turn on the mixer and start feeding the sausage into the grinder to stuff the casings. Hold the casings on the stuffing tube so that the sausage casings fill. When the sausage length is achieved, twist the casing to seal off the sausage. Continue until all of the meat is stuffed. Note: This takes awhile. If you have a hand operated sausage stuffer use it as the mixer sausage stuffer does not work very well.

29 finished bratwurst ready to freeze or refrigerate!

                    Last night's dinner guests were served lasagna with salad and apple pie for dessert.

The lasagna was made using tomatoes, onions, garlic, and herbs for my garden.

The apple pie was made with Jonathan apples from Kimberly, Idaho.

Both of these recipes are in my soon to be published cookbook: Dad's Home Cooking, Traditional Recipes for Preparing Healthy Family Meals.