Well, it is Friday again. Happens every week, right? It's been a heck of a week. Last weekend, we put two pigs into sub-primals for cooling. Yesterday, my mother and my kids and I put our pig into usable cuts. I'm no master butcher, but I cut that pig into 170# of pork cuts for our freezer in a manner that allows us to get the best use out of it.
If you want to know how much room that takes up, I'll tell you. It takes up 2 large coolers and 1/2 of a Wal-Mart cooler bag. Then we unloaded it all into the deep freezer. I struggled finding places to put all those packages that didn't stack the meat too much on itself. Packing it tight is a very bad idea because it won't allow the meat in the middle to freeze.
But I managed, and now it's in the freezer, and all is well. Now I have to find a way to cook it all! I didn't make sausage yesterday, but I did grind up almost 26 pounds of pork for ground pork. Guess what we are eating tonight, lol!
In light of the magnitude of pork in my freezer, I'm tossing a pork recipe at you all today!
Italian Sausage
2 pounds ground pork
2 - 3 tsp salt
3 - 5 tsp italian seasoning
2 tsp garlic powder
1 TBSP fennel sead
pepper, to taste.
Mix all ingredients together in a bowl. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours, and preferably overnight. You can then make patties, meatballs, mini-meatballs for pizza topping or just fry it up loose.
I use this to make little 1/2-inch meatballs for my homemade pizzas. I make meat sauce for spaghetti with it. I use it in any recipe that calls for Italian sausage.
If you don't have the means to make sausage links (and I don't), you can hand-form links fry them up in a saute pan or frying pan.
It's a very versatile recipe, and just like everything else I put up, please take them and make them yours. Adjust the seasonings, add what you want, take out what you don't.
In order to make this Hot Italian Sausage, add some cayenne or hot pepper of choice to the meat mix before you put it in the fridge.
We LOVE italian sausage! It is so versatile! I use it on pizza and in all of my italian pasta dishes. I even have a baked beans recipe that everyone loves and is surprised to find out that its the secret ingredient. We make it both with pork and with lamb and this year im going to combine pork and lamb and try some that way.
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