Holiday Recipes by The Inspired Cook

 The Inspired Cook 

Easy, delicious holiday breakfast recipe

                For those of you expecting to have overnight guests during Christmastime, you’re in luck because this column is dedicated to you. Inspired by the many times I’ve had guests spending a few days, I’ve formulated a new recipe with this in mind to share with you today.

Since there usually is plenty of food left from your main Christmas Day meal, you could serve these lovely leftovers for lunch and/or dinner without a second thought. And, if you did so, I’m sure no one would complain. But, breakfast is a different story.

From my personal experience, I know that deciding what to prepare guests for breakfast can be challenging even daunting sometimes. If you’re like me, then you’d like to make something special and tasty, but that’s easy to prepare.

Therefore, I’ve created a recipe that is sure to please even the most discriminating guests—homemade breakfast sausage. First of all, don’t freak out because this recipe sounds difficult and too time-consuming! Trust me that it’s not at all.

You also may be wondering how and why I would want to make my own sausage. Well, a few years ago, I watched a cooking show starring Rachel Ray—I don’t recall which show it was since she’s had several— in which she made her own breakfast sausage. Until then, I had no idea that was even possible as I never had heard of anyone doing it before.

Since then, I’ve been longing to try my hand at it. One thing in particular brought about my decision to do it: my most frequently saved pin on Pinterest.

Titled Simple Sausage Gravy and Biscuits, this pin receives numerous saves every week. In fact, there is hardly ever a day that passes in which it doesn’t receives at least one.

In this recipe, a roll of pre-packaged breakfast sausage and canned biscuits are the key ingredients. As one who constantly reads labels on products, I wanted to eliminate the unhealthful ingredients found in commercially prepared breakfast sausage. Therefore, I chose to make my own from scratch.

                Although I chose ground pork, ground turkey works wonderfully well as I substitute it quite often. Regardless of whichever meat you decide upon, you will be surprised by how easily and quickly it is to prepare.

                Charles, my better half, and I really loved the flavor of my first batch of sausage. We believe it’s some of the best we ever have eaten. The smokehouse maple flavor really imparted a yummy taste. I can’t wait to experiment with fennel seeds and other seasonings in the future.

                If you try my recipe, I suspect that you will bid a fond farewell to the prepackaged type once you’ve experienced your own homemade breakfast sausage.

                Look for a new breakfast casserole recipe using my homemade sausage in my column next week. Till then, happy cooking!

Homemade Breakfast Sausage

Yield: 8 sausage patties

Ingredients:

                1 lb. ground pork or turkey

                2 t. brown sugar

                1 t. sea salt, fine grind

                3/4 t. black pepper

                1 t. dried thyme

                1/2 t. dried sage

                1 t. smokehouse maple flavor

                1/2 t. poultry seasoning

                1/4 t. garlic powder

                1/8 t. ground nutmeg

Directions:

                Into a small mixing bowl, place the brown sugar, salt, pepper, thyme, sage, smokehouse maple flavor, poultry seasoning, garlic powder, and nutmeg and whisk together; set aside.

Into a medium-sized mixing bowl, place the meat. Crumble it into small pieces using your hands. (I wear disposable gloves when handling raw meat.)

                Sprinkle the sausage seasoning mixture over the meat. Mix together with your hands in a kneading fashion to fully incorporate the seasonings into the meat.

                At this point, you have four options: make sausage patties and cook them; make patties and freeze them for later use; crumble, cook, and freeze sausage for later use; or use sausage in another recipe.

                To make sausage patties, form the meat into eight balls and flatten them to a thickness of about half an inch. At this point, you can either cook the patties or freeze them for later use.

                To cook the patties, place them into a large nonstick skillet coated with cooking spray. If you made turkey sausage, you may need to use a tablespoon of oil in your skillet to prevent the patties from sticking.

Over medium or medium-high heat cook them, flipping them over once the bottom sides have browned. Cook for a few more minutes until they are brown on the bottom and done in the middle.

                To flash freeze the patties for later use, place them onto a parchment or wax paper-lined sheet pan. Put the pan into the freezer for about an hour.

                Once the sausage patties are frozen solid, remove them from the pan and put them into a zippered freezer bag, squeezing out all of the excess air to prevent freezer burn. Do not forget to label and date the bag.

                To defrost the patties, simply place them into your refrigerator overnight so that they will be ready to cook for breakfast the next morning. You can use a microwave to defrost them if preferred.

                To crumble, cook, and freeze sausage for later use, simply add about a tablespoon of oil to a nonstick skillet and place it over medium-high heat. Cook the sausage until it’s done and then place it onto a paper towel-lined plate to cool completely. When it’s cool, place the sausage into a quart-sized freezer bag and then freeze it. Defrost it in the refrigerator overnight or in a microwave.

Another freezing option, which I do all the time, is to put one-fourth cup portions into snack-sized bags, seal bags, and place them into a gallon-sized freezer bag to freeze. To defrost, place into refrigerator overnight or microwave it. One of these small bags is the perfect amount of sausage to add to two scrambled eggs for a delightful breakfast.