Homemade Beef Italian Sausage

I’m not one to buy ready made sausage – I just don’t trust the grocery store to use decent ingredients and tend to concoct my own recipes anyway.  I came up with this one last summer to accompany some grilled fresh veggies from my garden, but I use it for everything, from spaghetti sauce to Sausage Vegetable Noodle Soup and everywhere else sausage comes in handy.

I use grass fed beef for this recipe since I’ve never thought much of pork, nutritionally speaking, but it’s really the seasonings that make it what it is.  Feel free to use it with any kind of meat; even ground venison or turkey would probably make good sausage.

Ingredients:

2 pounds ground beef

3 teaspoons sea salt

1 tablespoon fennel seeds

1 teaspoon black pepper

1 teaspoon paprika

1 tablespoon garlic, minced or finely grated

2 tablespoons lightly packed, finely chopped fresh parsley

Directions:

1.  Over medium low heat, lightly toast the fennel seeds in a small skillet.  Then grind them in a spice mill.

2.  Mix the ground beef with all the seasonings in a medium bowl.

3.  It’s best to cover at this point and place the bowl in the fridge so the flavors have a chance to blend, but you can use it right away.  Form it into meatballs, brown it in a skillet, or freeze it to use later 🙂

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Yucatan Beef

Tender, flavorful, and so versatile.  Serve it in tacos, on a green salad, or eat it with chips and guacamole.

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon coconut oil

2 onions, diced

1 1/2 pounds stew meat, cut into 1 inch chunks

2 – 3 large cloves of garlic, minced

1/2 cup beef stock

1 – 2 chipotle chilies in adobo sauce, minced (I buy these in a can, and freeze the leftover chilies in a small container to use later.)

1/2 cup fresh cilantro, minced

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1 cup Cultured Tomatillo-Cabbage Salsa, or other green salsa

1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste

Directions:

In a large saucepan over medium high heat cook onions, beef and garlic for 5 – 7 minutes, until beef is nicely browned.  Stir in beef stock and scrape up browned bits on bottom of the pan.  Reduce heat to medium and add remaining ingredients.

Simmer covered for 1 hour until beef is tender and sauce is thickened.

Serves about 6.

Slow cooker variation: Instead of simmering for an hour on the stove, add an extra half cup of beef stock and cook everything in the slow cooker on low for 6 – 8 hours.

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