Two Homemade Sausages: Make Your Own Monday #31

Our local grocery stores often run specials on pork loins, those huge logs of lean, boneless meat.  At $1.67, sometimes less, per pound, it is about the cheapest way for me to buy good quality cuts of pork.  I cut them into chops, I cut them into roasts and I also grind them up.  Making my own ground pork is about the only way I can guarantee I am actually going to be getting plain old pork.  The last three times I have bought packages labeled "ground pork," I got seasoned breakfast sausage.  That makes for an interesting first bite of lasagne, let me tell you!



It really wasn't a big step to make my own sausage out of the loins.  I have already told you about making my own hamburger.  With a good sized food processor or one of those old fashioned hand meat grinders, you can mince any kind of meat.



This first recipe was developed by my mom after she skillfully questioned her local Italian butcher over the course of a few months.  He always told her to start with lean meat.  When she'd say something like, "Joe, your sausage tastes so much better than any of the others I can buy around here, do you use any special spices?",he'd start listing some of the things he put into it.  By the time she had interrogated  him a few times, she had a close clone.  She continued to buy from him until my dad was stationed somewhere else.  Then she started making her own.



Homemade Italian Sausage:

2 pounds lean pork

1 Tbsp coarse ground fennel

2 bay leaves, crushed

1 tsp parsley

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

Use a mortar & pestle or a spice grinder to crush the bay leaf and grind the fennel.  Cut the pork into large cubes and add it along with the herbs & spices to your food processor with the metal blade attachment.