a freezer full of goodness

One (of many) things that I love about my day job is that we seem to get every minor holiday off, so I've decided to dedicate these special days to food projects. Before we left for Argentina, we finished the last of the chorizo, so more sausage it was! I must say, it is much easier and more fun to make sausage with a buddy, but I wanted to try it on my own to really get the hang of it. The results may not be as pretty as the last ones, but they sure are tasty!
I decided on a large batch hot Italian and a small experiment batch of chicken cranberry.

Hot Italian Sausage
5 lbs coarse ground pork
1 cup cold red wine
1/2 cup chopped fresh oregano
5 tsp salt
5 garlic cloves, minced
1 tbsp fresh ground pepper
3 tsp cayenne
5 tbsp fennel seed
2 tsp crushed chili peppers
5 tbsp paprika
5 tsp brown sugar
(modified from source)



Chicken Cranberry

2 lbs finely ground organic chicken (I used dark meat for economic reasons)
1/2 cup chopped dried cranberries
1/2 cup cold white wine
1/4 of a white onion, grated
2 tsp salt
1 tsp fresh ground pepper
1 tsp thyme



I'm pumped to have a freezer full of sausage again! The rest of the Italian is coming with us to weekend events in mini-sandwich form. I roasted some red peppers and they compliment it nicely.