Tomorrow is baking day and it also coincides with a school holiday, so the kids are going to help me. I decided not to bake rolls this week, but to bake bread instead. I had to buy five pounds of whole wheat flour, because the recipe I have calls for half whole wheat flour and half white flour. We get the white flour in the 25 pound bag from Costco. I'm getting quite low on that and when DH comes home on the second we will pick up a new bag of that as well. But I can make it through the next couple weeks on what is left.

We are also going to make soft pretzels. I only do that when the kids are available because I hate rolling the dough into long ropes and they love it. If there is still time I will do a pan of cornbread as well.

It's also time to make sausage as my freezer stock is gone. Too many sausages have fillers and sugar in them and I don't like that and have made my own since even before we became aware of my son's allergies. The organic ones are super expensive and some of those still have sugar in them.

I like making sausage and over the years I've perfected a recipe that is perfectly suited to my family's tastes. I don't stuff casings, although I easily could since I have a pasta/sausage maker. It's just more work than necessary in my opinion when I am perfectly content with patties and crumbles. When I make it up I usually do several pounds at once. I do about 4 pounds of patties and one pound of crumbles for pizza topping.

My recipe is for one pound because even though I make five pounds in a session, I find that mixing it together in the smaller amounts makes a more evenly distributed ratio of herbs and spices to meat. It's hard to work with five pounds of ground meat all at once. I happen to have tons of different herbs and spices, so the cost to me is far lower than it would be too someone going out and buying the ingredients, but if you happen to have them on hand this is an economical recipe. After the initial outlay of course, the herbs and spices will last through several uses.

Anyway, here's my recipe:

1 pound of fatty ground meat (either pork or 80/20 hamburger)
1/2 tsp dried sage
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp salt*
1/4 tsp paprika (hot, not sweet)
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes**
1/4 tsp coriander
1/8 tsp black pepper

Add spices to ground meat, mix with hands and form into patties. 1 pound makes 4 fat patties or 8 thin ones.

*Ground pork often comes salted. If you are using salted ground pork, eliminate the 1/2 tsp salt from the recipe. **For a milder sausage eliminate the red pepper flakes. For a hotter sausage double the red pepper flakes. If you decide to use ground turkey or chicken I'd say only use half and mix the other half with the fattier pork or beef as it will be dry if you do not.

I freeze the patties uncooked and then cook them from frozen in a skillet. For sausage crumbles I cook them up before freezing them so that when I want to toss some on pizza it's already done and I just need to take a couple handfuls out the morning of to thaw.

I'm also going to make mini breakfast casseroles. I don't have an exact recipe for that as I sort of just throw in what I have. I mix up a dozen eggs and throw in either diced leftover ham, crumbled bacon, or cooked sausage crumbles. It's usually about a cup of meat. I have half a red bell pepper that needs using up and four scallions so I will chop those up as well and throw in a crushed clove of garlic. If your veggies are raw saute them until soft before mixing them into the eggs. (I've used anything from chopped broccoli, zucchini, and asparagus to cauliflower). A handful of cheese (I usually use extra sharp cheddar or parmesan) tops it off and I mix it well. (If you'd like it a bit creamier you can add cream or sour cream). Grease a muffin pan and pour 1/12 of the mixture into each cup. Bake for about 12 minutes in a 350 degree oven or until egg is set in the centers. These freeze well if you want to freeze them, but we usually have them eaten up in a couple days time.