Homemade Sausage Making

As most of you know I don't often use conventional casings for my sausage. I prefer patties or veggies as a container. It have in the freezer a supply of bell peppers filled with chaurice sausage, cabbage rolls filled with Italian sausage and mushrooms filled with garlicky Polish sausage. When these are partially thawed it is easy to slice them into bite sizes and fill a casserole dish with keeping them pretty much intact. The adding a variety of root veggies and topping it with a gravy and then with a batch of baking powder biscuits. By the time the biscuits are well browned the gravy is boiling and the meat and veggies are done.

I've done stuffed bell peppers and shrooms, never cabbage leaves. Later today I'll be taking my first shot at home made ravioli. For my initial effort I've decided on a filling of my wild hog Italian sausage, spinach, and ricotta cheese. I'm going to assemble the filling in a little bit, then we'll head off to the bargain matinee. The pasta making and ravioli processing will happen after the show, I'll report in later! RAY

Recipe for cabbage rolls: raid the cabbage bin at the super market and grab all of the big green outer leaves that get torn off and left behind. Sometimes if you ask politely the produce manager may give them to you. Steam them until they wilt and remove the mid rib and save it for veggie soup. Each big leaf yields two pieces that you put your favorite sausage mixture on in a lump about the size of your thumb and roll the leaf as you would for wrapping a fish in newspaper. Pack them side by side on a baking sheet and freeze them. Then pack them for storage. Use them as you would sausage.

Ross- tightwad home cook

Wow Ross you are certainly living up to your signature line!

BobK, I keep pretty complete records of my food costs and the total for last year was $2525 for two of us and the occasional party. That is food cost only household items medication and wine and spirits are not included.

This turned out to be a real fine venture, tho quite a bit of work.
Filling: 1 lb wild hog Italian sausage w/ wine and garlic, pan sautéed
1 cup chopped spinach, micro'd
1/2 cup parmesan cheese
1/4 cup bread crumbs
1 large egg

Pasta: 2 &1/2 cups sifted semolina flour
3 large eggs
3/4 tsp salt
1&1/2 tbsp. water
3/4 tbsp. olive oil

Cooking the filling and processing the pasta then forming the ravs was a runnin' ton of work, my back and hips weren't agreeable to prolonged standing today. After four dozen, even tho I had the fixin's for a couple dozen more, I called it quits.

After a hour with pots on the stove and single malt in my hand I felt a lot better, had a little glass of cab with my dinner

The reviews from Mrs G were off the charts, I'll be doing this again, it'll get easier. RAY

Excellent Ray! That's marvelous. What are you going to call this stuff (for the MRI index)?

Best Wishes,
Chuckwagon

Those Look Great!!!

There is a learning curve to making Ravioli! To me the hardest was the rest period for the dough to become workable.

Care to post your sauce(Gravy) recipe also?

And no homemade bread to soak it up!!!

I heard my wife on the phone with her buddy back east and she just referred to it as" Ray's Ravioli", the wild hog Italian sausage is the staple of my hobby and I never run out. I wanted the initial effort to be with something inexpensive in case things didn't go well, just happened to work out great. Now that I've got supreme confidence the dream is to make a Dungeness crab-shrimp-ricotta cheese ravioli that would go real nice with a cheesy Alfredo sauce.

When I was growing up every year in early September my dad would pull home on a Friday with the back of his truck piled high with boxes of tomatoes. My aunt and uncle would come over and the entire weekend was spent slicing, cooking, and canning tomato sauce, they'd do a couple hundred quarts. The tradition has been carried on for the last 35 years by my sister and B-I-L and their two good friends. I get a couple dozen jars every year in exchange for some of the sausage I make, used to give them some salmon too until I got rid of the boat a couple years back. Add a little garlic and olive oil and let the sauce cook down on the stove for a hour or so, really thick rich sauce with great flavor.

Gee, a week from right now I'll be on a plane headed to Ixtapa, Mexico. Can't wait! RAY