Today's project was not for the faint of heart or the immunocompromised. I made chicken sausage, both breakfast and Italian.
Tim's favorite food group is sausage. I think his RDA for ground meat and spices is around 1/2 pound. In search of a healthier way to satisfy him, I stumbled upon chicken sausage from Trader Joe's. Oh my. They are delicious. While cooking a particularly yummy sausage with dried apple, I started thinking that I could make this myself with the grinder attachment for my mixer. So I picked up some chicken and went to town.
A few weeks ago, I saw a TV host making sausage. It looked really simple. Take some ground meat, mix in some spices. I can handle that. The actual grinding process, however, was a mess. Raw chicken flecked the counter, the sink, the mixer and my shirt. I'm not usually concerned with germs, but today I freaked out a little. I sanitized the whole kitchen counter, even the surfaces I didn't use, twice.
The Italian sausage is good but nothing out of the ordinary. However, I think the breakfast sausage might end up being quite spectacular. I added dried Bartlett pears and cranberries as well as rosemary and sage. I can't wait to try it when my family visits next week.
Overall, I'd say this is kind of neat if you have a sausage loving carnivore sharing your kitchen table or company you really want to impress. For everyday use, I'm going to stick to Trader Joe's.
i use turkey sausage when i make kale and sausage soup - Nick isn't too fond of the soup, so maybe ill make a pot this weekend and bring some over for you guys.
ReplyDeleteI made a dish with turkey sausage, kale and white beans over polenta. It was quite delicious. I think I found it on wholefoods.com.
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