Copycat Recipe for Long John's Silver Style Fish Fillet (been making this one almost exclusively since 2008 since it's my favorite)

 

If you follow me on Instagram you know I had a hard craving for Long John's Silver style fish and finally gave into it and made it this weekend. 

This is something I would happily make in a regular rotation because I love it so much but I don't for many reasons.  1)  We don't usually eat wheat flour (we are primarily low carb) 2) Frying foods in grease really smells up the house for a couple days and 3) Mr. Husband isn't a fan of fish except in fish tacos or shellfish like crab.

Substitutions:  I had taken tilapia out of the deep freezer to thaw, not quite sure what I'd be making with it.  But the thought of Long John's Silver fish was taking over my brain so I decided on the spur-of-the-moment to make it using the tilapia.  I also don't have sparkling water or club soda on hand right now, but I did have a 12 oz. can of lemon flavored hard seltzer left from our beach vacation in July so I whipped up a quick batter.  I didn't use self-rising flour this time, so I just used regular flour with the addition of some baking soda and baking powder.  I added paprika for a bit of color and used the batter for chunks of chicken for my husband.

I've been making this LJS copy-cat since 2008 in one way or another - always playing with the ingredients a little based on what I have on hand and what I feel like.  I've posted these in 2008 and 2018 which I'll include below as well.  

2008

 

Batter for Fried Fish, Chicken, Shrimp and more!

1 c self rising flour
5 t prepared mustard
2 t sugar
2 t salt
1 egg
1 c water
1/2 t onion powder
2 lbs. fresh or frozen/thawed Cod filets or chicken strips, etc.

Mix everything but the fish/chicken. Heat a container of oil (3-4 cups) to about 350-400 degree's. Dip each filet into the batter and quickly place in the hot oil. Cook until golden brown, about 5 minutes. Drain on paper towels.
 

 

2018

 

Seafood and Chicken Strip Batter
You can double this too if you want/need to


1 cup flour
1 1/2 t baking powder
2 t salt
1/2 t onion powder
4 t yellow mustard
1 egg
1 c sparkling water
Seafood or chicken, etc. you want to batter and fry

Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl.  Beat the egg in a separate bowl but only until just blended; don't over beat.  Pour the carbonated water into the egg, stir briefly and add to the dry ingredients.  Mix or whisk quickly just till blended; again, don't over beat.

Dip pieces of seafood of your choice or pieces of chicken into the batter and fry in hot oil until golden brown - be sure to turn a couple times so they cook evenly and don't crowd the pan.  Drain on paper towels.  Serve hot.

 

 

 

2022

 

Long John Silver's Style Fish

Approximately 2 lb. cod or other fish, or chicken chunks
2 c flour
1/4 c corn starch
2 t sugar
3 t salt
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t baking powder
4 t mustard
1 t onion powder
1 t paprika
1/4 t fresh ground black pepper

2 eggs
12-16 oz. plain sparkling water, club soda, lemon flavored hard seltzer, etc.

Cut fish into wedges 7"X2" largest or whatever size you wish.  Blend the dry ingredients and add the liquid and eggs just before frying.  Heat oil to about 375 degrees (water sizzles when droplets are dropped).  Dip each fillet into the batter, coating generously and drop into the hot oil.  Fry each piece until golden brown (about 4-5 minutes).  Drain on paper towels or wire rack over paper towels.

*I packaged leftovers in food sealer bags, 2 to a bag, and sealed them to put in the deep freezer.  I was craving them again while typing this post so I literally left this browser open, took out a package and microwaved them to reheat and ate them sitting here at my desk while I finished the post!  The optimal way to reheat would be to crisp them in the oven by baking, or even in a skillet to crisp up again but believe me, I did not care.  They were delicious anyway and yes, I ate 2 more pieces just before typing this!

 

2018 I did a variety of seafood bites

 

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How To Clean Pampered Chef Baking Stones: (Photos of my 17+ year old stones.... bought in 2005 and used continuously - today is March/2022)

Before and After... these are also 17 years old by now (MANY cleanings)

If you've been a reader of An American Housewife for a few years, then you'll know that every once in a while I do an update on my stoneware - or how I 'clean' it I should say.  I've also added another brand of stoneware a few years ago so I have 3 baking stones now and they all three (3) live in my oven at all times, full time.  

Yes - even when I'm not baking on them, they are still in the oven full time - mostly just hanging out on the lower racks while 'whatever' else bakes.  They also sometimes do double duty as a 'drip pan' when cheese, grease or apple pie filling, etc. drips down from whatever it is I'm baking.

A well seasoned baking stone is dark brown.  This is a good thing because when they are 'loved' and dark brown, they are non-stick.  And even though they are cleaned by scraping them with the little plastic scrappers, and a quick hot water scrub if needed; once in a while you actually want to 'clean' them.  

I got my stones in 2005.  (Yes, the  PC baking stones in these photos are from 2005)

By 2007 they were beautiful dark brown and seasoned well.  One day in 2007 I decided spur-of-the-moment to clean the ovens and flipped the self-cleaning feature on while I was crazy-busy doing other things.   

I wrote about it in an old post here: 2007 Post (https://www.housewifebarbie.com/2007/10/how-to-clean-pampered-chef-stoneware.html)

The end result was beautifully clean stoneware.

That's how they've been cleaned ever since.  Literally... since 2007 (and today is March of 2022).

Since 2007, whenever I clean my oven I leave 2 or 3 of the pans in and let them get clean as well.  Note it does take the 'shiny' off the metal racks when you leave them in, but if you actually use your oven and cook with it, you won't have sparkly, shiny 'new' looking racks after a little while anyway.  I sometimes just put a tiny amount of WD-40 on a paper towels and lightly run it over the side of the racks to make them slide nice again.

Here is a well seasoned, well used, loved stone.  This is pretty much what they all look like after awhile.

 

And here is what they come out of the oven looking like... ready to be brushed lightly with a towel to get remnants of ash off and then immediately ready for use again.  

The 'clean' one (with a light bit of gray ash to be gently blown or brushed away) is on top and I placed a regular 'before' stone below it to show the difference of "before and after" simply letting them in the oven during a regular self-cleaning cycle.

What 6 large green peppers look like after dehydrating them! Crazy isn't it? - Prep and Pantry work going on right now in the American Housewife Household

Busy!  Not much being posted lately by way of recipes, but a busy toddler, a few unexpected things in 'life' we're dealing with and of course the state of things being what they are right now, I'm also trying to do some canning, dehydrating and 'stocking up' just in case.

If you follow me on Instagram you might have already seen this, but I just love seeing the results of dehydrating foods!  

This is the dried green pepper bits from... SIX (6) large green bell peppers!  

It's so awesome!  After drying, each 1/4 cup of diced pepper basically equals about 1 fresh. 

I store bell peppers in various ways, but for our family, I do a few bags of green peppers frozen, and the rest I dry as I tend to use them in soups and stews, which are perfect for dehydrated (or freeze dried). 

Red and yellow peppers are mostly cut into strips and food sealed and frozen as I use them in stir-fry, and fajita's, etc.  It's super easy to cut them into diced if needed as well from frozen state.

(Just because we are on topic - as a side note, I buy containers of sliced mushrooms and immediately put them into the freezer as they are unless I am using them that night or the next day.   I throw them into soups, stews, the pan to saute', etc. straight from frozen state as well).

From my Instagram: I've been dehydrating again... Dehydrating Lime Peels, Whole Limes and Cabbage (UPDATED)

THERE IS A SMALL UPDATE ON MY DEHYDRATOR AT THE END OF THE POST (1/22) 

I (like most all of you) are so so so busy lately that I never find the time to pop in to post - even though I obviously cook and bake daily.  Three or more times a day.  But I often don't bother to take photos - or I start to take them but forget to take a 'finished' product picture - or I do take photos and then they live in my computer files and never see the light of day because.... too busy.

A couple weeks ago I was doing some dehydrating.  I had limes leftover from a weekend of guests, and I didn't want them to go bad before I could get around to using them.  So, I juiced the limes to get the juice for my favorite chicken marinade and then used the peel to get a nice little bottle of dried lime peel.  I like to keep dried lemon peel, lime peel and orange peel on hand for baking and cooking.

I also had extra cabbage on hand - which lasts forever - so I didn't need to hurry really, but there have been times when I wanted cabbage and we didn't have any so I decided to dehydrate a head of it so I'd have it ready in the pantry for beef stew and boiled cabbage, etc.

 

 

There really is no recipe for drying cabbage.

You don't have to blanche it or do anything to prep it. 
Just slice into thin strips or small pieces, place them on your dehydrator trays, and let them dry until the pieces are dry, small and ready to put into a mason jar or container of your choice.

For the limes I used half of them to make dried lime peels for the pantry and then used the rest to dry 'whole' and grind up into dried lime powder.  You can buy dried lime powder and dried lime slices online but they are sooo simple to make yourself!  

For the dried peel, just peel the zest off your lime (the green part) and lay them out to dry on your tray.  When they are brittle, you can pop them into your container, or chop them a bit first, or spin them in a small food processor first to chop them quick and easy.

To do the lime slices, just wash your limes well and slice thin.
Lay the slices out and dry until brittle.
They will turn quite dark.
You can use them as is to cook with (laid under chicken and fish is nice!) but I grind mine up and use the dried lime powder in marinades.

  

I just reuse old spice bottles and repurpose them to whatever I need at the time.
This one now holds dried lime zest.

This is a close up of whole dried limes ground into powder.

In 2022 I upgraded my dehydrator to a larger, rectangle version with shelves and adjustable temperature.  Any dehydrator will do, but I do find the upgrade is easier and better to adjust the temperature so I get the colors of my goods to stay nice and bright.

Baking in my Solar Oven - Spice Cake! (Both recipes for regular spice cake and low carb version)

When you can't wait to decorate the whole cake, you just grab a spoon and dig in!

I did, ultimately, frost the whole cake....  after I ate a portion of it with a spoon first!

The past couple days have been 100 degrees outside and not at all 'Fall' like, but my body must know it's almost Fall because I've been craving a good old fashioned spice cake like crazy!  

I'm not a fan of raisins in any food dishes (if you are a regular reader you already know how I feel about people who put raisins in Thanksgiving stuffing, homemade cinnamon swirl bread or bagels!) but oddly enough, spice cake is the one baked good that I don't hate them for being there.  I may pick them out and leave them on the side of my plate more often than not, but then again, I rarely EAT spice cake so it's neither here nor there.

Deciding to give in to my craving, I decided to make a regular, traditional spice cake and even gave myself permission to use flour and sugar if I wished... since we got off the habit of healthy low carb over the past two weeks due to being in beach vacation mode and cooking/sharing meals for a large group of people, none of which are low carb/sugar free except us.

But I had no raisins on hand and the bag of prunes that also could have sufficed went home with a family member after vacation as well so (luckily) I had neither to work with.  And that is when I decided I really wanted to make it a healthier low carb version anyway.... time to get back on the keto bandwagon and admit that vacation is over. 

So the cake was made... which I'll include the traditional recipe and then the ways I changed it to make it low carb, flour free and sugar free.  I also opted to bake it in my solar oven since it was 100 degrees out anyway.  

Old Fashioned Spice Cake

1/2 c real butter (1 stick)
1/4 c shortening
1 c brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 c raisins
2 c flour
1 t baking soda
2 t baking powder
1/4 t cloves
1/4 t nutmeg
1/2 t all spice
1 t cinnamon
1 c sour milk (use a tablespoon of vinegar into a cup of milk and let it sit for a few minutes)

Grease 2 rounds or one oblong (7X12).  Beat the butter and shortening with the sugar, add the egg.  Mix the flour with the spices, and add alternately with the sour milk.  Stir in the raisins and pour into your pans.  Bake at 375 for about 20-25 minutes until the center is set and the cake is done.  Cool completely before icing it with your favorite frosting.  Cream Cheese Frosting is excellent on this one!


Lower Carb and Sugar Free Version
Old Fashioned Spice Cake

1/2 c real butter (1 stick)
1/4 c shortening
1 c brown sugar style sweetener 
1 egg
1 t vanilla
2 1/4 c almond flour
1 t baking soda
2 t baking powder
1 T good quality coconut flour
1/2 c whey protein powder
1/4 t cloves
1/4 t nutmeg
1/2 t all spice
1 t cinnamon
1 c soured cream (use a tablespoon of vinegar into a cup of cream and let it sit for a few minutes)

Grease 2 rounds or one oblong (7X12).  Beat the butter and shortening with the brown sweetener, add the egg and vanilla.  Mix the almond flour with the whey protein powder, coconut flour and spices, and add alternately with the soured cream.  Pour into your pans.  Bake at 375 for about 20-25 minutes until the center is set and the cake is done.  Cool completely before icing it with your favorite frosting.  Cream Cheese Frosting is excellent on this one!

*For the cream cheese frosting in the photos in this post I used an 8 oz. block of cream cheese, softened and added a splash of vanilla extract and about 1/2 c natural sweetener (I used Erythritol with Monk Fruit and a bit of Pyure - always mix 2-3 brands for best flavor) and added enough to cream to get it the consistency I wanted (maybe a quarter cup? I just poured and mixed until it was spread the way frosting should).  

 Baking in my solar oven as it was a hot, sunny day.  Just bake it until the center is completely set.

I couldn't frost it yet as it was still too warm (and I had been cooling it in the freezer to hasten the process...)  but when you can't wait, you just grab a spoon and dig in!!  I would put a smear of frosting on each bite - and yes, I enjoyed it immensely.

 I did however, finally get around to icing the whole cake!

Delicious Homemade Ice Cream

My favorite is vanilla; because using that as a base, we can make it into almost any kind we wish at the time of serving.  Last night it was coffee ice cream.  Tonight my husband made his chocolate and I opted for plain vanilla.  Peanut butter, cookies and cream, chocolate peanut butter marshmallow, lemon cookie crunch, salted caramel, cherry nut....  make any kind you wish out of it! 


Homemade Ice Cream

4 cups heavy cream
3 egg yolks
dash of salt
1 T unflavored gelatin powder
3/4 c natural sweetener(s) of choice
3 T vanilla

In a saucepan on the stove but with the heat off, place 2 cups of the heavy cream, along with all the other ingredients.  Whisking them briskly, turn the heat on and heat over medium until it starts to steam and you start to see tiny bubbles start to form around the edge but do not let it simmer or boil.  Just remove it from heat.  Whisk in the rest of the cream and either chill it in the refrigerator until you wish to use it, or pour it directly into your machine. 

Turn it on and press the button for ICE CREAM.  And wait.  In about 30-35 minutes you have soft serve ice cream ready to eat and you can put the rest of it into a container of your choice, seal it tight and place it into the freezer to harden for scooping at another time.

(Remember your ice cream maker bowl needs to come straight from the deep freezer and needs to be frozen solid.  If you can hear the liquid swishing around the inside, then your freezer isn't cold enough or the bowl needs to be moved to a colder part of your freezer because it needs to freeze solid.  (Note: my upright freezer doesn't get as cold as our chest style deep freezer.  The bowl freezes solid within about 6 hours in that one!  But 24 hours in our upright style barely gets it solid.) 

*I like to fill a coffee mug with ice cream and pour 6 ounces of strong brewed coffee over mine.

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Serve it somewhat soft now or place it in another container to get harder for scooping later.

Soft serve, straight from the machine.

YES it tastes just as good as it looks.

You have to hurry to get the ice cream out because your bowl is still frozen and freezing the mixture that is closest to its walls.  If you work fast enough to scrape all the soft ice cream out into another container, you won't have much left that is hardened on the bowl... but then again, I always figure that's my first serving!  I just grab a spoon and dig in!

My Favorite Beef Stew Recipe - Adapted for use in the Instant Pot Cooker

When I first started making this recipe I used the recipe that was made to simmer forever on the stove, into one I put in the crock pot/slow cooker.  Last night I adapted it for my Cosori Instant Pot Cooker as well.  This is because when I decided to make the beef and vegetable stew for dinner that evening, it was because I had diced meat pieces I wanted to use up but they were in the deep freezer.  Obviously frozen solid.  For tender bites of beef they need to cook slow and long... which wasn't an an option.

And then I thought "I'll just make it in the Instant Pot!"

So I did.

Play with this recipe on some of the ingredients - mainly the vegetables.  I actually bought a peas/carrots/corn veggie mixture specifically to make this recipe because we are *usually* lower carb so we don't keep potatoes, corn or peas on hand.  But... it's cold. And winter. And gray outside.  And darnit, a hearty beef stew on a cold winter day is just... comforting!

I didn't put mushrooms in this time.  No reason.  Just didn't feel like it.  Sometimes I dice up cabbage for this which I love!  But I didn't have cabbage in the house this week so... again, like I said; play with the recipe if you wish.




Beef and Vegetable Stew

3 c cubed, peeled potatoes
4 medium carrots, sliced
1 medium onion, cubed
2 lb. steak or other beef, cubed or cut to about 1" pieces
2 T oil
3 T flour
2 beef bouillon cubes
2 c water
1/4 c white vinegar
1/4 c ketchup
1 T prepared horseradish (I don't buy this but I have mild horseradish cream by Kraft (?) in the squeeze bottle)
1 T prepared mustard
1 T sugar
1 c peas
1 c corn
1 c fresh sliced mushrooms


In the instant pot, place the oil and use the 'saute' menu option.  Add the beef and brown it. (I put mine in frozen, straight form the freezer and broke it apart as it browned and thawed.)


When the beef is mostly browned and has color, sprinkle on the flour and stir a bit.  Add the beef broth (or 2 beef bouillon cubes with 2 cups water) and seal the instant pot.  I set the pot to cook on the 'meat' button setting.  Then quick released the steam to open the lid; add the potatoes, carrots (if you are using fresh sliced, which are harder than packaged, frozen) and fresh chopped onions.

Either in a bowl OR just add it to the pot; stir in the vinegar, ketchup, horseradish cream (if you are using), mustard and sugar.  Cover, seal and cook on 'soup' or 'stew' setting.

Quick release, add the peas, corn, and mushrooms.  You can add another 1/2 cup water if you need/want to.  If you need to serve immediately, set it for a short cook time like 8 minutes.  If you don't need to serve right away, seal it and use the 'slow cook' button so it cooks like a crock pot/slow cooker until you need it.

I served with fresh baked homemade rolls.

I finally decided on what cherry pitter to buy....

As much as I like to eat cherries, and as many years as we've been married, and as much baking and cooking that I do, you would think I would own a whole bunch of awesome little fancy kitchen do-dads.  And I don't.  As a matter of fact I'm the queen of improvising... because I've never had money to buy fancy do-dads so I always made do without.  I even used a little $8 Hamilton Beach mixer for the first 12 or 13 years of marriage - even when I was making upwards of 1000 cookies each holiday season and doing baking and cooking daily for my family and friends.

But this past week I finally invested in a cherry pitter!  I normally just use a paring knife and cut around the pit if I'm using cherries in a recipe.  I was placing an order on Amazon for something or other (can't remember what it was) but I did a quick search that night of cherry pitters - found one I thought would work well for me and ordered it.  And?  YES I LIKE IT!

Ultimately I'd like to try two more; one of which is a 'multiple' cherry pitter that does a number of them at once; but for starters I got this single pitter.  After I got used to how it works, I found it was quick and simple - I went through an entire bowl of cherries in no time!


The one I chose is the one that looks like a tulip - or a flower.  It's the 'blossom' style: MSC International Joie Blossom Cherry Pitter.  You simply drop your cherry in, press the plunger, let it spring back and then give it a quarter turn to release the spring to 'dump' the cherry into your bowl or container.

A close up of it in action...

Here is what it looks like when there isn't a cherry in it - and this is a good photo to show you why I chose it.  Because the other similar 'plunger' style pitters didn't have the space this one does for my fingers!  Do you see how the petals of the flower blossom curve out?  They gave more space than the shorter and smaller versions of plunger style cherry pitters and I knew that if I was doing an entire bowl of fruit, my fingers would be more likely to slip off as there just wasn't enough to 'grab'.

The only tricky thing to remember is to line up the little notches inside so your plunger will go down through the cherry and then back up.  If they aren't lined up it will block it or lock it.  This is actually how you store it when not in use as well; you push it down, give it a slight turn so the notches don't line up and then it stays in the plunged position for storing in the drawer.

Cherries that have been pitted - quickly and easily!

Ready to be made into my pie filling.... (for a Cherry Crepe Cake - hopefully I'll get around to posting about it soon but... life.)

Homemade Wheat Bread - (grinding my own wheat berries means healthy bread and no digestive problems!)

One of my own personal Holy Grails...  the elusive homemade wheat bread.  One that isn't heavy, condensed, rock hard, flat, underdone in the center or any other undesirable finished product.

It only took me, oh... about 15 years!

Apparently all I really needed to do was grind my own wheat berries.  Bingo.  I did it.  I got a homemade wheat bread with no chemicals or preservatives of store bought bread.

NOTE:  I grind my own wheat now using organically grown, heirloom non-genetically modified wheatberries.  I have soft white, hard white and hard red berries on hand; I use hard white for this one or 3/4 hard white with 1/4 soft or red mixed in. 



Wheat Bread 
double loaf

3 c warm water
1 T instant/quick yeast
1/3 c oil
1/3 c honey or sweetener
1 T salt
6 c hard white whole wheat flour mixed with;
1/2 c rolled oats or quick oats
1/4 c vital wheat gluten with vitamin C

Combine water, yeast, oil, honey and salt.  Add about 5 cups of the flour and star to mix slow in a heavy duty mixer with a bread hook.  Add 1-2 cups more flour as needed so it forms a nice ball of dough.  Let it knead about 8 minutes.  Coat your hands with a bit of oil and turn dough out onto an oiled or parchment lined surface.  Divide and form 2 loaves.  Place in greased bread pans.  Cover with plastic wrap and let raise in a warm area for about 45 minutes until doubled in size.  Bake breads at 350 for 25-30 minutes in a regular open bread loaf pan or about 45 minutes for a heavy duty, restaurant style pan with lid.  Remove and cool. You can rub butter on the top surface of the bread in the 'open' traditional style baking pans for a softer crust with a nice flavor.

An Update to my Homemade Spinach & Feta Chicken Sausages - Round 2! Chicken, Garlic and Spinach Sausage

The last week of December I posted a recipe and photos of the process I used to make homemade chicken sausages.  This week I made more and wanted to update about the casings as well as how I made them this time - tweaking the recipe a bit.
 

 I am VERY thrilled with this version - a little more fat, heavier on the spices and the addition of the bacon.
Another important item to update:  The casings were still perfect to use.  According to the package, you store unused casings in the bag with the addition of more salt.  I did this in December, pulled them out and they were exactly the same as when I bought them.  Worked great and were fresh.  I used a couple more, re-added some salt to the package and back into the back of the refrigerator they went! 

 
Homemade Chicken Sausage with Spinach and Garlic

5 lb. boneless, skinless chicken breasts - cubed
2 - 1 lb. packages fatback, cubed (I found this at Walmart - it adds the moisture you need in this recipe)
6-8 slices bacon
1 1/2 T ground coriander
2-4 t salt (start with 2 and adjust after you taste test.  I like to use 3)
2 T fresh garlic, pressed, chopped or minced
3/4 c spinach (I used frozen, chopped style)
1/4 c olive oil
dash or two of lemon juice
dash of lemon pepper
Meat Grinder
Casings of your choice

Follow the directions on your meat grinder.  Grind the chicken, fatback, bacon, garlic and spinach into a large bowl.  Add the rest of your seasoning ingredients to the ground mixture in the bowl.  Mix well.  Taste test by cooking a small patty of your mixture on the stove in a bit of oil.  Adjust the flavorings to your liking and test again.  When you are happy with the cooked taste of your sausage, continue.

Attach the stuffing tool per your grinder's instructions.  Attach the casing onto the stuffing tube per your grinder's instructions and your casing instructions regarding whether your casings need to be rinsed first, etc.  Re-feed the chicken now ground and seasoned, into the machine and form long tubes per your casing instructions being sure to secure the end first so your sausage doesn't come out!  Be sure not to overstuff, you want to leave room to twist and form sausages.

Holding the rope in small sections in my hands like a tiny jump rope, I spin the sausages a couple times away from me to twist the ends. This forms a sausage.  Now I moved my hands down a little more and holding the first twist in my left hand, and squishing the sausage up about an inch on the right, I placed my fingers there and I spun another chunk of the sausage, but this time spinning towards me (the opposite way).

Continue moving your hands down small sections of the sausage rope, alternating spinning the 'jump rope' away from you and towards you, which forms the twists between the sausages. Make sure you are squishing enough room between the sausage links (about an inch) to form the twists.  Let the ropes set while you finish all the chicken mixture.  You can store as is, or snip them apart with scissors.  These freeze well.  I seal them in food saver style packages, and place in freezer.  To prepare, thaw and boil, broil or grill.  I like to parboil them in 2 inches of water in a saucepan on the stove and then when I'm ready to serve, I just quickly grill or broil them to make them golden brown and crisp on the outside. 



Here is a copy of the original post from December, 2015

I made this up as I went along and 'taste tested' it at 2 different points which I recommend you do too.  To taste test - take some of the mixture when you think are pretty happy with it - and form a small patty.  Cook it in a pan on your stove top and then taste.  Do you think it needs a little more salt?  Garlic?  Add.  Taste test again.  

My Homemade Chicken Spinach and Feta Sausages

4 - 4 1/2 lb. boneless, skinless chicken breasts - cubed
1 - 1 1/2 lb. fatback, cubed (I found this at Walmart - it adds the moisture you need in this recipe)
1 T ground coriander
2-4 t salt (start with 2 and adjust after you taste test.  I like to use 3)
1 T garlic, minced
3/4 c feta cheese, crumbled
3/4 c spinach (I used frozen, chopped style)
1/4 c olive oil
Optional:  dash or two of a lemon, garlic mixture of your choice brand or lemon pepper)
Meat Grinder
Casings of your choice

Follow the directions on your meat grinder.  Grind the chicken, fatback and spinach into a large bowl.  Add the rest of your ingredients to the ground mixture in the bowl.  Mix well.  Taste test by cooking a small patty of your mixture on the stove in a bit of oil.  Adjust the flavorings to your liking and test again.  When you are happy with the cooked taste of your sausage, continue.

Attach the stuffing tool per your grinder's instructions.  Attach the casing onto the stuffing tube per your grinder's instructions and your casing instructions regarding whether your casings need to be rinsed first, etc.  Re-feed the chicken now ground and seasoned, into the machine and form long tubes per your casing instructions being sure to secure the end first so your sausage doesn't come out!  Be sure not to overstuff, you want to leave room to twist and form sausages.

I don't have the little wires to form sausages, so I used the 'twist it' style.  Holding the rope in small sections in my hands like a tiny jump rope, I spin the sausages a couple times away from me to twist the ends. This forms a sausage.  Now I moved my hands down a little more and holding the first twist in my left hand, and squishing the sausage up about an inch on the right, I placed my fingers there and I spun another chunk of the sausage, but this time spinning towards me (the opposite way).

Continue moving your hands down small sections of the sausage rope, alternating spinning the 'jump rope' away from you and towards you, which forms the twists between the sausages. Make sure you are squishing enough room between the sausage links (about an inch) to form the twists.

I let the ropes set while I finished stuffing another casing.  You could store them as is, but I wanted to cut mine apart and seal them in groups of 3 or 4 in individual food saver style bags in the deep freeze.  I snipped them apart, and only had 2 open up on me that I had stuffed a little tight and had to redo.  You could probably par-boil them at this point, let them cool complete and freeze them, or use them right away.  I sealed mine, and put them in the deep freeze.  When I make them, I put them in the refrigerator to thaw and then put them into 2 inches of water in a pan on the stove to pre-cook them - then finish them on the grill or under the broiler.  We don't have to serve anything 'with' these as a condiment - they are so good all by themselves.  We have them plain with a side dish or serve in a bun like a brat or a hotdog.

My very simple, one speed Weston meat grinder.  Nothing fancy!

Grinding the chicken breasts

 I packaged some ground chicken as is - unseasoned - to use in taco's later

The fatback adds moisture to the sausage.  Don't skip this or they will be dry and crumbly!

I found mine at Walmart in the packaged meat department.

 Adding the spinach

The casings I bought online come like this - and you have to rinse them before use

Yeah, they kind of look gross. Ha ha.

Put the stuffing attachment on your machine and have a couple casings ready.

I only used 2 long strips (but I didn't know so I had more ready just in case)

Threading the casing on the attachment.

Ready to tie off the end and begin stuffing

Don't push or pull.  Just let the machine fill gently and guide it.  Don't overstuff.

If there are any air bubbles you can poke through the casing with a clean pin to make them disappear.

Resting while I finish a second casing.

I snipped them apart and packaged them into 3 and 4 sausages per bag to freeze

We ate 4 right away and sealed the rest to store in the freezer

Marked and ready to store