It’s a bit overdue, but we butchered a few of our meat birds the other day at the homestead.  We didn’t harvest them all, just the roosters and onegimped up hen (RIP Limper).  We’re keeping the rest around for a while since they started laying eggs!  That’s right meat birds that lay eggs, breed, are hardy, forage, aren’t morbidly obese, and are interested in more than just the feed dish….I’m talking about the Red Ranger meat chicken.  We got ours fromMurray McMurray Hatchery, needless to say we a quite  pleased.  Anyway, a couple months ago a friend shared his recipe for Chicken Apple Sausage that was fantastic, and ever since I’ve been wanting to try the recipe out with our own homestead raised birds…after all if the sausage was that tasty with store bought birds it has to be at least twice as good with our home grown, right!

Chicken/Apple Sausage
5 lb chicken w/skin
(add 1/2 lb fat or bacon w/o skin)
1/3 C apple juice syrup
2 TBL Morton sugar cure (or 1 TBL each salt & brown sugar)
2 tsp sage
2 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
1/4 C soy powder or powdered milk
1/4 C peanut oil

The process goes a little something like this:  If you’re using a whole chicken(like we did), first bone the bird out, saving all of the skin, fat and meat. (you’ll be left with a nice chicken carcass that can be used to make a fine homemade broth), grind up the meat, fat, and skin, mix all the ingredients together in a big bowl, then stuff you sausage into casings or package as bulk breakfast style sausage.  Prepare as you would any uncooked sausage.  We prefer a quick boil, then brown in a skillet.  This is a great sausage for breakfast, and a wonderful way to make room in your freezer (sausage takes up a lot less space than an entire bird)!  Enjoy (and thanks for the recipe Kevin)!

Don’t forget to make the broth!