Monday is a Sausage Day

Well my long awaited adventure of making sausages was finally accomplished today! Everything fell into place to make it possible: I got my KitchenAid meat grinder and sausage stuffer for Christmas, I finally got around to buying some sausage casings, our freezer had an excess of pork and venison roasts AND I had a day off. There was also an extra pair of hands that were willing to help out! So that made today sausage day. Yesterday I got my meat thawing and my casings soaking in the fridge. I thawed 13 lb. venison and 7lb pork (ratio of 1/3 pork to 2/3 venison). The meat was still partially frozen today, but that worked out fine because the meat grinder works better with half frozen meat. I got everything set up - then set to work. I cut my meat in 1/2" strips then fed them through the grinder on the coarse plate. I put the meat through a second time to get it well ground. My extra set of hands showed up at just the right time. We added our spices, which ended up being: 1/8c. salt, 1 1/2 tsp cayenne, 2 tsp. garlic powder, 1 tsp. sage, 1 tsp. paprika, 1 tsp. mustard seed, 1 tsp. black pepper and 1 tsp. oregano. Mixing the spices into the meat is a chilly job (which is a good thing - you don't want your meat getting to room temp. while your working). Its recommended that you use 20% fat in sausages, but since I was using venison they were much leaner. Pure pork sausages would have plenty of fat. Getting the casing on the horn correctly is important, the first batch got double cased because the first end had overlapped under. Any youtube video gives a pretty accurate idea of how to use the sausage stuffer attachment. I picked up on it quickly, you just have to go at the right pace and make sure your sausage is even. We didn't have any trouble with the casings breaking. We made a long "rope" of sausage, then twisted off the links afterwards. Its important that the links are twisted good before cutting so your casings don't ride up. We simply bagged the sausages and froze them - keeping out enough for supper. This batch made about 32 sausages. They tasted great pan-fried, with enough zip in them but not too much. They are a dryer sausage, but they slice through with no crumbling. I would recommend making sausages to everyone! Its very satisfying to know exactly whats in them and exactly where they came from! Now if only the bbq wasn't buried in snow...

                                                                           And Voila!