Long Time, No Sausage

I'm not sure why I haven't made sausages in over a year.  It's fun, it's satisfying, and it's a lot of hard work.  Oh, maybe that's why...

I found a huge pork shoulder and separate package of pork fat in the grocery store the other day, which I took as a sign that I should make a batch of sausages.  This time I made breakfast sausages with ginger and sage from the Charcuterie cookbook.  I cut up the meat last night and seasoned it.  This was made more difficult by the fact that my kitchen scale gave up just as I was almost done weighing out the meat.  Really gave out.  The display was flashing something unintelligible and continued to do so even after I changed the battery.  That makes scaling up a sausage recipe almost impossible!  Fortunately, I was very close to being done with the weighing so I guessed on the final amount and then guessed a little on the salt.  It turned out a little more salty than expected but not bad, so I seem to have done alright.

Today the 11 year old and I stuffed them into casings.  My husband took over when said 11 year old got tired.  I think we got about 40 links and we had patties for lunch to use up the rest.  They taste great by themselves, and awesome with maple syrup.

Just Couldn't Wait

Really, truly, I had other things to do today. That involved being outside. Stacking wood, planting some ground cover, trimming. It's supposed to rain tomorrow, so it had to be today.

But that pasta maker called to me. "You missed me! You really missed me! I want to make pasta with you!"

Sigh.

I now have 3 and half dozen pumpkin raviolis, about one dinner each of spaghetti and fettucini, and a pile of stacked wood.

I used a basic pasta recipe: 1 pound of flour, 5 eggs, and a little olive oil. For the pumpkin filling, I made it up. I roasted a sugar pumpkin in the oven at 400 degrees for 45 minutes. Then I scraped out the flesh and chilled it a little. I squeezed out all the water and added freshly picked and chopped sage (about 8 large leaves), half a container of whipped cream cheese, salt, pepper, and a little nutmeg.

I had a few technical difficulties making the raviolis, considering it's been about 16 years since I used the press I guess I forgot a few things. So, note-to-self: flour the press, use thickness 6 (consider thickness 5), and don't overfill!

Since I don't anticipate we'll eat all the ravioli tonight, I froze 2 dozen - currently they are sitting on waxed paper in the freezer and, when they are frozen, I will transfer them to bags. When the rest of the pasta is dry, I will figure out how to store it.