Solo Sausage Making

This weekend is going to be a cooking weekend for me!

I've been looking forward to making sausages ever since our lesson over the summer, but then got delayed by my finger. That darn pinky sure caused a lot of problems! Anyway, I bought casings on line from the Sausage Source and, while I was at it, got another cookbook. You can never have enough cookbooks. Yesterday I made Maple "Breakfast" sausages. I put "breakfast" in quotes because, well, since I didn't have sheep casings they were not going to be breakfast-sausage-size. I don't think it will be a problem to have them for dinner tonight. Or to have larger sausages at breakfast.

First, the mise en place: the meat (a pork shoulder) was cut up and frozen for 30 minutes to make it easier to grind. The spices and liquids were measured out. I had the right amount of chopped onion. The grinder was set up and ready to go.
I started the grind. Even with the cold meat, the grinder did get clogged and I had to disassemble, clean and reassemble before I could complete the process. Once the meat was ground, I added the chopped onion and ground it again. Then I mixed in the spices and the maple syrup and milk. Everything went into the fridge at this point because I had it in my head that I had to go to the mall.

I never did make it to the mall. The traffic was amazingly bad.

After I got home, I prepared the casings and started stuffing. I had been planning on waiting for my husband, since it is easier with 4 hands, but couldn't wait and did it myself. Instead of twisting each link as it was filled, I filled the whole casing and then twisted them when they were done. That was a lot easier, as long as the casing wasn't overstuffed. 15 links total.

They've sat overnight in the fridge and I just froze 2 bags of 5 links each. The other 5 links are for dinner tonight! Isn't anticipation great?