Breakfast Sausage

Safeway had a BOGO deal on their pork and beef roasts, last week. I decided it was time to try to make some sausage. First up? Breakfast sausage with 3# of the pork. I recently bought some sheep casings. Just the right size for little breakfast sausages. I opened up the package of casings, took one whiff, and thought they must be spoiled or something. They smell rank. But after looking around on the web I discovered that they aren't rotten, they just smell awful. I had to rinse the salt off them and soak them in water for 30 minutes, to soften them up. While the casings were soaking, I ground the pork.


After this first grind, I mixed in the seasonings, let it sit in the freezer for 30 minutes, then reground it. Now it was time to stuff the casings.


Let me just say, I am not at all impressed with the sausage stuffer attachment for the KitchenAid. It took FOREVER to stuff this 3# of sausage. Sausage stuffing is really a two person job. One to load the grinder, and one to control the casings. Since I was all by my lonesome I had to do both jobs at the same time. Needless to say my sausage isn't the prettiest. And my arms got really tired. But here is my filled sausage.


Now to twist it off into individual links and hang it to dry for 30 minutes. Hang it to dry? Where? Time to rig up something like coat hangers on the back of a chair.


Good thing the cat didn't wake up. Here are my little sausages, all ready for the freezer.


And here is the breakfast I fixed for my sweetie, this morning. He said they tasted like breakfast sausage from the store, and he's still alive tonight, so I guess it was a success.


Here are the seasonings I used.

Mild Breakfast SausagePer each pound of ground pork, add:
1 tsp. kosher salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
1/2 tsp. ground sage
1/4 tsp. dried thyme
1/2 TBS. brown sugar
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. dried parsley
1/8 tsp. paprika