Make your own Sausage (Minced Mutton)

This is my first attempt at a blog post...ever. I hope I do not mess up Megan's wonderful blog! I really appreciate all her hard work in keeping this thing going. I use lots of her recipes (the one I keep making over and over right now is Chicken Soup with Lentils ...with brown rice instead of barley. All of my family, even the picky eater, loves it.)

I'm not a big fan of mutton except in its minced form. If you have a pretty good selection of spices, mostly ones you use for Thanksgiving-type foods, you can easily make your own sausage using mutton keema. This is adapted from a Jimmy Dean sausage copy cat recipe.

1 kg mutton keema
2 1/2 tsp. salt
2 1/2 tsp. dried parsley
3-4 tsp. rubbed sage
1/2 tsp. black pepper
3-4 tsp. dried thyme
1 1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
1 1/2 tsp. coriander (dhaniya powder)

Combine all the spices with the keema. Mix thoroughly. Cover and refrigerate several hours (I usually let it set overnight). If your sausage mixture smells really fragrant, then your spices are probably fine. I usually cook just a tiny portion in a skillet to see if I want to add anything else before cooking all of it.

Cook it, then use it to top homemade pizza, make breakfast casserole, put in sausage potato soup, etc. This makes quite a bit of sausage, so after I cook it I freeze it in several smaller batches. Later I will post a recipe for sausage stromboli that my family loves. Enjoy!
Rachel R.

Spinach and Bacon Quiche

One thing I often ask for people to bring/send when they come are those packs of Real Bacon bits from Hormel.  They're just great for throwing in some eggs in the morning, on a salad, or in this quiche.  I usually use about 1/2 c. for this if substituting for the fresh bacon. You could leave it out, but it would definitely be missing a little something...

6 large eggs, beaten

1 1/2 cups heavy cream

Salt and pepper

2 cups chopped fresh baby spinach, packed

1 pound bacon, cooked and crumbled

1 1/2 cups shredded Swiss cheese

1 pie crust, fitted to a 9-inch glass pie plate

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Combine the eggs, cream, salt, and pepper in a food processor or blender. Layer the spinach, bacon, and cheese in the bottom of the pie crust, then pour the egg mixture on top. Bake for 35 to 45 minutes until the egg mixture is set. Cut into 8 wedges.

Barbecue Cups

This is a recipe I inherited on my marriage. Apparently, this was a common dinner at my husband's house in college. Simple back then, with ground beef in a one pound package and Pillsbury Grands biscuits ready to go! I've worked hard at making it just like Grands, but can't quite get it right, especially without the beef. But, this is a fair substitute for when he's really craving it.

1/2 kg. minced meat

1 c. barbecue sauce

1/3 c. brown sugar

Tabasco sauce

Biscuit dough (see below)

1/4 c. Shredded cheddar cheese

For biscuits:

2 c. flour/maida

1 T. baking powder

1/4-1/2 t. salt

1/3 c. butter

3/4 c. milk

In a medium mixing bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, and salt. Using a pastry blender, cut in butter till mixture resembles coars crumbs. Make a well in the center of the dry mixture. Add the milk all at once. Using a fork, stir just till moistened. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Quickly knead dough by gently folding and pressing dough 10-12 strokes or till nearly smooth. Pat or lightly roll dough to 1/2 inch thickness. Cut dough with a floured biscuit cutter.

Brown the meat in a large skillet. Add the barbecue sauce, brown sugar, and a few dashes of Tabasco sauce.

Grease a muffin pan. Then flatten biscuits by turning them in your hand and evenly pressing on the outer

edge until they are large enough to fill a muffin cup and come up the sides. Like this.

Then fill the cups with the meat mixture. Bake it at 180 for about 25 minutes. Pull it out and top each biscuit

with

cheese.

Bake another five minutes until cheese is melted. Like this. Yum. :)

I couldn't even get a picture snapped before one was whisked away!

So we're neither both very crazy about this biscuit recipe for this dish. Here's one I found I want to try next time I make it:

http://www.cdkitchen.com/recipes/recs/330/Grand-Biscuits119194.shtml