Well, I tried to resist! Barely have any freezer space and have been
trying to make myself live out of my freezer...

but, $1.49 per lb. for BEEF??? Sliced Chuck at that. :-)

So I just finished making 15 lbs. (42 links) of basil and garlic beef
sausage. I'm seriously considering trying to make some dried smoked
sausage out of this using my badly under-used offset smoker, but I'll
have to do some research as to how to do that.

The flavor is wonderful:

Per 1 lb. of meat:

1/4 tsp. sea salt
1/4 tsp. white pepper
1/4 tsp. dried rubbed sage
1/4 tsp. powdered thyme
1/2 tsp. powdered celery seed
1/8 tsp. allspice
1/2 tsp. granulated garlic
1/4 tsp. paprika
2 tsp. dried basil leaf

I made links in pork casings (due to the fact that this was going to be
pretty lean sausage) and saved some of the leftover (from broken links,
cleaning the grinder, etc.) to make a nice sauce for a planned Sunday
dinner and mixed in 3 patties of the pork sausage I made 2 weeks ago.
The links are currently being frozen and the sauce I'm making in the
large cast iron pot smells delightful at the moment.

I saved one slice of the chuck for grilling and plan to also grill the
zucchini I bought Friday and top it with the sauce.

The sauce is being made from some leftover sausage, one whole onion, 8
oz. thinly sliced mushrooms, shitake mushroom powder, some Italian
seasoning, tomato paste and some chopped up canned tomatoes along with
the juice, thinned with some roast beef rib stock that was frozen from
about a month or so ago.

Should be interesting. :-d

Pics to follow eventually!
--
Peace! Om

Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass.
It's about learning to dance in the rain.
-- Anon.