Sausages and Bread

Well santa didn't come up with the goods, despite my pleading letter which included pictures so there would be no confusion, but his last minute shopping expedition on Christmas Eve yielded socks, which, yes, I need as I have a thing about cold feet so squirrel pairs away all over the place, just in case. All the cars have a pair in the glove box and there must be at least two pairs in the boat. I also got a lovely array of fishing lures, which someone else has been trying out!! and some other very useful bits and pieces. Luckily it is my Birthday a week later so I got my whiz bang food mixer then. To be fair Steve did go looking at Christmas and was totally overwhelmed by the choices, so it was better we went together, and I ended up getting a fantastic Kitchenaid stand mixer, in "Black", well when your shopping with a man and the assistant who is helping you make this monumental decision to spend so much on a mixer is also male, I didn't get much say, but to be honest, it looks good in my half renovated kitchen, very....... manly .

Then I realised it had all these attachments you could get!! Couldn't help myself, had to get the grinder and sausage stuffer, and these are the results.

A trip to my butcher got me some natural sausage skins and some pork necks to play with. See how well Black fits in with the gyp rock and plaster wall.

 

Here it is, mincing up all that lovely pork

And ta da - my first batch of sausages

There was a lot of pork there, so the next day I made some more. The darker ones at the back are Italian with red wine, garlic and lots of spices and the front apple and sage .

Last night we had home made bangers, salad and rosemary and sea salt foccacia.  I haven't bought a loaf of bread this year!!  sounds very impressive but it's only the 14th Jan LOL. So I have been keeping my promise to myself to cook more, have made plenty of bread but this is the first photo I have managed without a great hunk missing of the end - no one can resist fresh, hot bread. My creativeness has just been channeled in a different direction the past week, one which Steve finds much more appealing I'm sure, but today I'm sitting here with green hands, which has got nothing to do with any food product and a lot to do with Procion Dye ;)