Omelet wrote:
> 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
>
> Remove _ to validate e-mails.
>
> "My mother never saw the irony in calling me a Son of a bitch" -- Jack Nicholson
Nice job- you are one brave woman! How were the casings to handle- they
look slimy... did you do any without casings?