Homemade Sausage

And there was this.

No, the peanut butter didn't go in the sausage, since that seems to be what everyone wants to know.  I finally got to play with the sausage stuffer that I've had for years.  (We've used the grinder lots, just not the sausage tube.)

We used a pork shoulder roast and natural hog casing.  We decided to flavor it with Smoked Sundried Tomatoes, Asiago cheese and about a bulb and a half of garlic.  We also added a pretty good amount of dried basil, salt and black pepper.  The hardest part of making it, for us anyway, was the fact that we couldn't taste it as we went.  Dave and I both cook largely by smell and taste, rather than any kind of recipe or measurements.

All in all, in turned out delicious and we got almost 5 pounds.  The casings burst and shrank and we're not entirely certain why, and it was dry and crumbly because we didn't have enough fat, BUT it was delicious.  We got all the flavoring and seasoning proportions right, and by dumb luck since we decided to try this without any kind of recipe on the first go.

In hindsight, if we would have looked up some recipes, we would have know about adding extra fat, but if the outcome is tasty, who cares if you learned the hard way.

We'll definitely make sausage again, but we'll probably stick to tested recipes for the next couple just to get a better feel for it.  AND because we want to make bangers and that calls for breadcrumbs and things so it's a whole different thing again.