I cannot believe the year is nearly half over. I remember when I was a kid how my parents used to say time moves faster as you get older. As kids, we didn't believe it. As a middle aged guy, I realize now how right they were. Life moving faster and faster means that I have to stop and take time to... LIVE. All work and no play means you're too soon dead. So take some time to hang out with some friends. Once a year we get together and cook italian from scratch. The red wine flows, the food is phenomenal and most important is the fellowship with friends. A friend of mine and I have actually started making from scratch our own Italian sausage and I've even started experimenting with some other recipes. This past Friday we ground up 25lbs of pork and made Italian and a form a potatis korv, a Swedish potato sausage. I put my own spin on it and used cube potatos, onions and a sharp irish cheddar cheese. I've use frozen cubed potatos in the past but they seemed to mush down and get lost in the meat. 
So I used raw cubed potato this time but I learned that I have to make the cubes of potato a little smaller so that they cook all the way through. Even though the potato has held up quite well, it's a great flavor in the sausage. I think they will work great for breakfast, or tail-gating or cooked in the crock pot with sauerkraut. Next time we get together for our sausage making party we plan to do 50lbs. We're getting really good at it, especially now that my buddy Jeff brought back this sausage press from his family's meat market in PA. The press was made by John Wagner in 1859. It still works great and it's loads faster than using our KitchenAid. Hopes are to try some chicken recipes soon but that will have to wait until I get back from a two week break to my cabin on the Manistee River in northern Michigan.
So I used raw cubed potato this time but I learned that I have to make the cubes of potato a little smaller so that they cook all the way through. Even though the potato has held up quite well, it's a great flavor in the sausage. I think they will work great for breakfast, or tail-gating or cooked in the crock pot with sauerkraut. Next time we get together for our sausage making party we plan to do 50lbs. We're getting really good at it, especially now that my buddy Jeff brought back this sausage press from his family's meat market in PA. The press was made by John Wagner in 1859. It still works great and it's loads faster than using our KitchenAid. Hopes are to try some chicken recipes soon but that will have to wait until I get back from a two week break to my cabin on the Manistee River in northern Michigan.
So stay tuned. The RaleighHomesGuy (Twitter) may be evolving into The Sausage Man.
