Sausage Making Party 2023

 Several Saturdays ago, we hosted a sausage making party for the first time in a few years.  DS2 had requested it; he was out of sausage and a couple of his friends who had made sausage at our first big sausage making party had been asking him when we would have another.  We'd had a smaller, just family one since then, and DH and I have made several even smaller batches of sausage (for just the two of us) in the last two years.  Then DD1 asked about sausage making, and DS1 asked, and DD2 mentioned it, so it seemed like January was going to be a good time to have another large sausage making day.

DS1 ended up not being able to come because he and a couple of his kids were sick that day (but still wanted about 15 pounds of sausage).  

DD2 ended up not being able to come due to previous plans for that date (but still wanted 4-5 pounds of sausage).  

DS2 did come, as well as two of his good friends from college (who'd attended the inaugural sausage making at this little place here). We ended up making about 55 pounds of sausage that day.

DD1, Honorary Son, Faline and Buck also came and participated.  Well, Buck mostly slept, being barely two months old, but Faline was all in for helping.

It was Faline's first sausage making party, and she really got into it.  She helped transfer meat from the tote--where the four meat cutters had put the pork they cubed--into the grinder.  She did it by the armfuls, as you can see.  This was before any of the meat was seasoned, so we didn't worry about spices bothering her skin.  

To her it was all a great treat being able to help and scoop and dump, and all the grown-ups were so tickled by how much fun she was having doing a rather mundane job.

Once all the meat had been ground, it was divvied up into batches of differing weights, based on how many pounds total we planned to make of four flavors: breakfast, chorizo, Italian and hot Italian.  Each batch was then put into DH's brand new meat mixer, and the seasonings added.  Then DH proceeded to mix the seasonings in thoroughly without his arms getting tired. (He'd been wanting an automatic mixer for a while.)

All of the breakfast sausage and chorizo were left in bulk (ie, not stuffed) and packaged in 1/2 or 1 pound packages.  Some of the Italian was also packaged in bulk; it's great on pizza. . .  The rest of the Italian and all of the hot Italian were put into the stuffer and stuffed into casings, which were then twisted into links.

Faline was extremely interested in watching the casings being stuffed.  She stood on a stool between DH and DS1 and watched intently as DH guided the stuffed sausages from the stuffer and DS2 twisted them into links.

Unfortunately she needed to eat dinner several hours earlier than when everyone else at the party was going to be taste testing some of the newly made Italian sausage, so she ended up having hot dogs that night.  I don't think she felt like she was missing out though, as she had so much attention from her Uncle DS2 and all his (so far unmarried and childless) friends, she was the queen of the day.