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Life is too short to eat bad food! Sharing great recipes, farm life, stories and photography from our Northern California dairy farm.

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November 11, 2010

The Art of Making Homemade Sausage

It's early on a Saturday morning, and the rain has been falling for hours. But this doesn't dampen the spirits of anyone in the basement of Uncle Jim's house, because soon enough, we know, that we'll have 100 pounds of sausage stored away in the freezer.  Why am I so excited over sausage, you may ask.  Maybe it's because the tradition of making it is just as important as eating it.  This recipe is a long time ranch family recipe passed on from my father-in-law, to Dominic and soon, to Bryce as well. 















The sausage crank {I don't even know if that's the name of the thing} is at least 100 years old.  A big tubular chunk of steel with a hand crank.  The ground meat, a combination of venison and pork and the many ingredients mixed with it,  is placed into the canister you see below.













It is then pressed out by turning the hand crank.

Into the casing that awaits at the other end.


The length of sausage tube is then tied off at various intervals to create individual links.


Each long set of links is hung for a day in the cool basement and frozen the next day in freeze dry packages.
Ready to be cooked or BBQ'd and eaten.  The flavor of this long time recipe is one of  slightly sweet, salty with a touch of cinnamon. 

Happy Thursday!

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7 comments:

Katie said...

OH I love these photos and story Nancy! I live in a popular "sausage making" area of the world. We'll have to compare notes.

chow and chatter said...

oh wow homemade sausage this looks divine and what a cool thing to do as a family Rebecca

Nancy Grossi ~ Churned In Cali ~ The Wife of a Dairyman said...

Kaitie, yes we'll have to swap stories:)

Nancy Grossi ~ Churned In Cali ~ The Wife of a Dairyman said...

Rebecca, it is a lot of fun to keep these family traditions going. Thanks for visiting:)

Ren- Lady Of The Arts said...

Oh yum! In college my roommates dad used to make dried Italian sausage and she would alway bring oddles back. As a little girl I used to watch my dad and grandfather make Polish sausage- Homemade is some much better!

Nancy Grossi ~ Churned In Cali ~ The Wife of a Dairyman said...

Ren, yes I agree, homemade IS so much better! We dry some of our links as well and my kids would eat it every day if I allowed them to:)

Homemade Sausage Blog said...

What a wonderful blog. It's nice to see others that enjoying making sausage as well.