You just never know what goes into a store bought sausage, ding, ding, ding, ding, then make it yourself. I bought the meat grinder attachment for my KitchenAid recently and I had helped my friend Renata make sausages once, so no sweat, right? Well, off I went to Uwajimaya for the pork casings...
OK, if certain things about cooking gross you out, do not make sausages, DO NOT ATTEMPT AT HOME. I can break down a chicken, duck, whole salmon, but touching a pork casing is a little gross. Slimey, slippery, whatever, I had to get over it.
So, I thought I had everything I needed to make sausage, but apparantly, there is another attachment I needed to conect to my grinder attachment. Oh well, I looked around and decided, I'll just use a funnel. Not a great idea if you want to stuff the casing quickly. Well first I chopped up the the pork shoulder into 1-2 inch pieces. I had read several recipes which pretty much said, 4 parts meat to 1 part fat. I decided 4 parts meat to 1 part panko mixed with olive oil instead of pork fat. There's no avoiding some filler if you don't want all the fat. I actually confirmed this with the executive chef at my work, who said he remembered making sausage at the CIA and "there's a lot of fat in sausage!"
OK, so I seasoned the chunks of meat, put it through the meat grinder, then it got UGLY!!! I have a meat grinder, but I do not have the other attachment that makes makes stuffing the casing a little easier. I couldn't take any pictures at this point, it was a mess. Anyway, I had already put the slimey casing on the funnel, knotted the end and now I was shoving the ground meat by hand into the funnel, then into the casing. STRESSFUL!!! At this point, I announced, "I don't care if sausages are a million dollars a pound, I'm not making them again!!!" So, the sausages were safe in the fridge, so we took a little BREAK!!!
We drove up to Snoqualmie Falls. 
If you haven't gone to the Falls at Snoqualmie on a sunny day, do it. Even if the path to hike to the bottom is closed right now, will re-open 2013, seeing the falls gave me just the break I needed to forget my kitchen. We had a little time, so we went up to The Attic, the more casual pub at The Salish Lodge, right above the falls.
If you haven't gone to the Falls at Snoqualmie on a sunny day, do it. Even if the path to hike to the bottom is closed right now, will re-open 2013, seeing the falls gave me just the break I needed to forget my kitchen. We had a little time, so we went up to The Attic, the more casual pub at The Salish Lodge, right above the falls.This is such a great place, you can sit by the window and check out the falls. A lot of fun drinks and a fun pub menu.
Perfect place for a little snack. We didn't want to have too much, after all we are grilling sausages later.
Well, good news, the sausages were better than we expected. I need to make the sausages again and write down the recipe, I have to say, I wasn't expecting such awesome sausages the first time. I'll share next time!
