Got myself a new toy...
It's partially why I was behind by over 700 posts from the weekend. <G>

Cabelas was having a 4 hour "black Friday" sale on Friday between 6 am
and 10 am. Since I get off of work at 7 am, this was perfect.

I'd read their newspaper ad and they had a nice selection of cool
things. Cabelas, as a rule, tends to be a bit overpriced on a variety of
things with the notable exception of ammunition. It's cheaper there than
at Wal-mart!

But, I digress...

They had a nifty little high torque meat grinder marked down from $99.95
to $49.95 for that 4 hour period and it looked good, so I bought one.

In the meantime, turkeys had dropped down to a decent price here at $.67
per lb. so we ended up stocking up on 5 extras weighing between 10 and
14 lbs. each. I do this every year as dad and I both love turkey. I
partially thaw them and cut off the legs, wings and thighs and bag them
up for 3 meals and re-freeze for a later date. I then de-bone the breast
meat and keep it for stir fry. The backs and breastbone are made into
stock.

So with the new "toy", I had a slight plan change. I de-boned the breast
meat from 4 of them as usual then cut it into grindadable strips. I then
removed as much meat as possible off the back and still put the rest up
for stock along with all of the skin. I did not add skin to the sausage.
The fifth and smallest turkey will be roasted probably tomorrow.

HEB had some lovely, reasonably lean pork trimmings for $.97 per lb.
so the sausage was made from 1/2 turkey meat (mostly breast) and 1/2
lean trimmed pork.

To each lb. of meat I added:

Coarse salt: 1/4 tbs.

(down from 1/2 tbs. that the original recipe I downloaded called for and
it was _plenty_ salty enough)

Fresh sage: 1/2 tbs.
Fresh thyme: 1 tbp.
Ground cinnamon: 1/8 tsp.
Fresh Mexican Oregano: 1 tbp.
Ground black pepper: 1/3 tsp.
Garlic Powder: 2 tsp.

Amounts of some stuff is approximated. The one nice thing about making
home made sausage is that you can change a recipe to your personal
tastes as well as herbs/spices on hand, AND you can make it lower in fat
and salt, and sugar free! The only commercial sausage I've ever found to
be sugar free is Boars Head.

Good sausage is expensive, generally running about $3.00 per lb. I
calculated this out to around $1.00 per lb. 4 turkeys later, we ended up
making 24 lbs. total and each batch of 12 took us about 3 hours
including deboning the turkey.

This stuff turned out to be rich and delicious!
I let the links solidify a bit overnight in the 'frige before cutting
them into single links for freezing.

Pics:

S1TheSetup.jpg
http://i11.tinypic.com/2e5ur2x.jpg

S2TheMachine.jpg
http://i13.tinypic.com/2sbk83l.jpg

S3TheMeat.jpg
http://i10.tinypic.com/4835iu1.jpg

S4Grinding.jpg
http://i14.tinypic.com/29z4h8y.jpg

S5TheStuffer.jpg
http://i11.tinypic.com/44lmgsj.jpg

S6SausageCasings.jpg
http://i13.tinypic.com/42l6qoi.jpg

S7CasingsWet.jpg
http://i14.tinypic.com/4br4mfp.jpg

S8SausageCondom.jpg
http://i12.tinypic.com/2ds2wrr.jpg

S9ReadyMixMeat.jpg
http://i14.tinypic.com/2a4xug4.jpg

S10FirstLink.jpg
http://i12.tinypic.com/2ai2352.jpg

S11FirstCasingSet.jpg
http://i13.tinypic.com/30d855g.jpg

S12TwleveLbLinks.jpg
http://i10.tinypic.com/49imjhi.jpg

S13SausagePlated.jpg
http://i14.tinypic.com/43rmpvr.jpg
--
Peace, Om

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"My mother never saw the irony in calling me a Son of a bitch" -- Jack Nicholson