DIY Sausage

Hubby likes sausage. Last time I went to buy sausage, it was over $4 per pound. Really? This is just ground up fat with a little meat and a coupla spices added in. Sausage makers everywhere should be ashamed. I could buy steak for that. And I did.

But then, I still had that little problem of no sausage. Hubby also likes bacon - in fact, he loves all the meaty traditional breakfast stuff - but wouldn't you know THAT'S about $4 per pound also. He prefers sausage to bacon because, "You get more meat". He prefers sausage patties over links because, "You get more meat". Which is fine with me. Who wants to bother with sausage casings (do they really use guts?) and specialized equipment anyway? So guess what one of the gifts under the Christmas tree was. Yep, a meat grinder! (It wasn't his fault. We'd actually talked about it and I wanted a hand-crank one. It was on my wish list.)

I went to Winco and bought a 7.22 pound pork roast for .99 per pound. I cubed it up - fat and all - and added:

3 tbsp sage
1/2 C parsley
4 tsp dry thyme
3 tbsp salt
4 tsp pepper

I also added:

1/2 teaspoon each of savory, rosemary, oregano, basil, marjoram, and fennel which made more of an italiany dinner-type sausage. But I learned that if I just want breakfast sausage, I can't go crazy with the italian herbs. I'll just put in the spices listed in the first part.

Then I put it through the grinder.

I know, it looks kinda gross here, but it was really pretty good. And a lot less fatty than store-bought. Certainly a LOT cheaper. And fairly easy to boot. Hmmmm. Makes me want to try DIY bacon.