I have this thing for sausage…I like it. But I only like certain kinds fixed certain ways. Is that as clear as mud? Some sausage is just…bad – really bad. Like, full of gristles and nastiness bad. YUCK! Then some sausage is so good it makes you wanna slap your mama. That’s the kind of sausage I’m after.
My favorite sausage of all time is my mama’s home-canned sausage. You fry that stuff up and scramble some eggs. SHEWEE!!! It’s some good eatin’. We like to buy a hog from someone local and get it processed – better than the stuff from the store – although I’m not above the stuff from the store. Recently I found some “natural” sausage at Ingles and we like it very well.
My uncle Bob is going to raise a hog for me this summer – so this fall I’ll be eating good. I slobber just thinking about it.
This week in Cooking Through Stacy’s Stash we’re tackling another one of my Taste of Home recipe magazines: Comfort Food Diet. This particular one is from 2010.
Why do I love this cookbook? Same reason I love all Taste of Home cookbooks – they have lots of pictures. I like seeing pictures of food when I’m trying to decide what to cook. Plus, it gives me inspiration when taking photos…but as you can tell from my photography, it’s just inspiration in my head.
Why do I hate this cookbook? Diet. The first three letters of diet are DIE. I hate diets. I lived too much of my life worrying about that type of stuff. I prefer to live an eating LIFESTYLE. Diets are meant to be broken. A lifestyle is something you embrace and live daily – with no regrets or wishes of something else to eat. I think diets are stupid.
I use the recipes in this book as ideas. Like the recipe I chose this week: Turkey Sausage Patties. I have a love/hate relationship with ground turkey. Sometimes I like it. Sometimes I hate it. I definitely hate turkey sausage. I love turkey bacon. Turkey sausage is gross to me – I hate mixing it up and I hate smelling it cooking. It’s like a sausage imposter.
So, I took this recipe and fixed it so that you could use any type of ground meat. I added some spices and took a few others away based on what I had on hand. Of course, I used venison for this recipe but you can use whatever you like…even turkey if you want to – just don’t make me smell it.
Two spices this recipe really need are allspice and sage. I love sage. Most of you might not keep it in your pantry, but that’s sad…go buy some. It’s so good – it smells divine and you really can’t make sausage without it.
The original recipe called for fennel. I don’t keep fennel. So, I used what I had and was quite pleased with the result. I think you will be too.
Just mix everything together and fry it up like regular sausage. You could make patties and freeze them, thawing out a few at a time for a quick breakfast. Or, you could just fry them all up at once and freeze them once they’re cooked. Or, you could just fry them all and eat them in one sitting. I won’t tell.
Verdict? These were very good. I will definitely be making them again. They just scream for a biscuit and egg – if I was going to make breakfast sandwiches with them, I would make them larger and flatter…like a burger. A big ole sausage burger. I’m slapping my chops over here, y’all.
And here’s an extra Stacy tip for ya. When I’m doing frying sausage (or bacon), I keep the fat in the skillet and fry my eggs. Holy cow. If you’ve never had sausage fried eggs, it’s a sad world you live in. They’re scrumptious! PS – if there is extra fat left after that, I pour it in a dish and sock it in the fridge to fry eggs all week. You want to come live here, don’t you?
Homemade Sausage Patties
- 1 pound ground meat (venison, turkey, chicken, beef, or pork)
- 1 teaspoon rubbed sage
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon thyme
- ½ teaspoon pepper
- ½ teaspoon onion powder
- ¼ teaspoon garlic powder
- ¼ teaspoon allspice
- Dash cayenne pepper
- Dash Cajun seasoning
- Mix all together.
- Refrigerate for 30 minutes (or not, because I’m in a hurry for my sausage).
- Form into patties and fry like sausage.
- Keep grease for frying eggs. YUMMY!
Yield: 5 servings
Every time I make this recipe I say a prayer of gratitude for your willingness to share with us. I have a ton of allergies, pork being one, so my dear hubby hadn’t had sausage in our home for 30 years. No kidding! I fixed this as a surprise with homemade biscuits and gravy made with sausage. He couldn’t believe how good it was and was so happy. Thank you for sharing.
Thanks for the comment, Kathy! So thankful your husband enjoyed it 🙂 And goodness – a pork allergy must be tricky!
Julie, HH Team
I’ve been waiting to try this since you posted, and today was the day. Oh my goodness! If this is not my favorite way to eat venison, then it is definitely a close second. Can’t wait for my boys to bring home another deer.
Thanks for posting!!
Hip, hip hooray!
Why sure! I’d be totally honored. 🙂
Excellent! Thanks so much! By the way, I also love the Godly approach you take on your blog, and the fact that you guys are already debt free! Woohoo! Congrats! My hubby and I are well on our way to paying off our mortgage within the next year or so as well. Yay for being Dave fans!
You kick that debt out girlfriend! Fist bump!
Hi Stacy, I love reading your blog and recipes. I am the one who wrote just below (Beth) about additives and being excited to find this yummy recipe. I can’t get it out of my mind! I just bought more ground pork today to make a quadruple batch, in fact. 🙂 I have a question for you: I write a recipe column 2x/month (for 2.5 years now) for our small town weekly newspaper, and I wondered if I could pass along your breakfast sausage recipe, and props to you and your blog of course, in an upcoming “Mokena Munchies” column? Unfortunately you have to pay a fee to see the paper online, but all our village residents receive it. Let me know what you think. Either way, I’m excited to have found this recipe–thank you!
Thank you so much for this excellent recipe!! My triple batch (using ground pork, on sale!!) is cooling right now. My husband and I just sampled one of them, and it was fantastic. Exactly the flavor I was hoping for in a breakfast sausage. And I made it myself! We are discovering that my hubby’s body does not tolerate the additives in certain foods, especially MSG and nitrites/nitrates in sausage. I am so excited to have a recipe that tastes authentic and won’t cause him pain! Keep up the good recipes and great writing!!
Hooray!!! That makes me so happy!
This is amazing!
LOL I’m glad!
I do that with my sausage grease, too. And bacon grease. I make biscuits with bacon grease. Oh. Yum. Thanks for the recipe!
Bacon grease = true love.
Hi Stacey! I’ve been looking for a good sausage recipe, so thanks for sharing! I love to use sausage grease to make gravy! I also save bacon grease to flavor beans and such! That is so neat your uncle is raising a hog for you! Can’t wait to see what all you do with the meat! Blessings from Bama!
Sausage gravy and biscuits is Annie’s favorite meal. 🙂
I am going to try this recipe. We were given a grocery bag full of bear sausage and it is wonderful mixed with our home grown beef. There is nothing better than fresh home grown meats.
I love your blog and your frugal ideas!
I love meat!!!!!!!!!!
Now I’m nervous. If he hates it, don’t tell me.
LOVE this recipe, love sausage. I have tons of venison so this will be great to make a bunch and freeze some to save me time later. Love that.
Venison sista!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am the same – love sausage patties. We grow our own pigs, so we have plenty of ground pork to find interesting ways of serving the same thing over and over. I found sage sausage patties on Allrecipes and they are to die for! Please try it. Yours sounds very good but the Allrecipes one is different and very, very good.
The term “slap yo’ mama” will make me laugh every time for the rest of my life. Too funny for this Canadian girl!
I love Canadians!!! Thanks for the recipe referral. 🙂
Just added this to my Plan To Eat list. I have my oldest ds make our sausage up in large batches. We use a mixture of pork, turkey, and beef. Once it’s baked (hate the mess of cooking it on the stove)then he divides it into 3-4 ziplocs. I don’t think I’ve been using enough sage though….thanks!
I love sage…and I LOVE Plan to Eat!!
I’m glad to know I’m not the only one who likes turkey bacon but cannot stand turkey sausage. I think your version sounds better than the TOH version. I also have that cookbook and have the same love/hate relationship with it.
Turkey bacon is SO good…I could eat some right now.
i DO wanna come live there and i don’t even like fried eggs! 🙂
Come on! 🙂
I have been looking for a recipe to make homemade sausage…and I happen to have a freezer FULL of venison!!!
I love freezers full of venison!!!
Irony? I don’t know. I spent an hour cooking ten pounds of homemade sausage this morning. Our friend who makes it called yesterday to say he had made the last he would make until next fall. When we hauled out @ 4:30 this morning to get my prince off to work, I thought I may as well fry it all at once. Now my house smells like Christmas morning. It sure made my prince a happy man.
I love when my house smells like bacon or sausage. lol
Thanks! Making this! Where was this post last year when I slaved over turkey sausage, and everyone hated it!?!? Yes, definitely going with pork! 🙂
Turkey sausage. Blech.
I am not big on store bought sausage. I am so OCD about not knowing what was put into it. I love homemade though. I have the same book, somewhere????? I have to go find my book now. Have a great day.
I hope you find it!