Things I don't buy: sausage

In keeping with the meat theme, sausage is another thing I won't be buying anymore. For the first time ever, I made my own sausage this year.

And it is good!

Remember that 25 pounds of pork I ground a while back? 20 pounds of it got turned into two types of sausage:  sage and mild Italian. As I don't have a sausage stuffer (yet!), I simply froze it in one pound packages, and I'll use it in sauces and casseroles and such. (The rest I kept as plain ground pork - tourtiere, anyone?)

I simply searched on the internet for recipes, and modified what I found to suit my own tastes. For example, I'm not a big fennel fan, so I halved the amount of fennel the Italian sausage called for. It's still a bit much for my taste, so next time, I'll either reduce the amount, or try grinding the seeds so the taste gets more evenly distributed. 

And that's the best thing about making your own sausage: getting to control the ingredients, from the meat you use, to the herbs and spices you add.

I used the first package of sage sausage to stuff the last of the CSA squashes - yum! As an aside - a hearty, yummy vegetable that lasts at room temperature for months without any special preservation needed? Who doesn't love squash??

So now, I'm on the lookout for a sausage stuffer so I can make linked sausage, and a good book of recipes for sausage making. Any recommendations?