Dateline: September 17, 2020 Sorta Hot Italian Sausages and Delicata Squash

Hot Italian Sausages, homemade grilled.  What could be better?  I can't think of anything right now!  The smell of the smoke, the smell of grilling meat, and the sizzle of the fat hitting the hot coals...  Quintessential Summer.

I made the sausages using Hank Shaw's recipe for hot italian sausages.  I didn't have the type of pimenton that he suggested, so I googled swaps and came up with gochugaru, korean hot pepper flakes that are used to make kim chee.  I know, I have these in the pantry.  Come on, don't be a hater!

They turned out not to be fiery enough.  I will either get the hot paprika called for in the recipe, or gerry-rig using gochugaru and cayenne.  To the left, are the finished sausages, drying out a bit before I cut them apart and bag them up.

To the left are the grilled sausages and the delicata squash.  All I did to the squash was to spray it with coconut oil cooking spray and then salt and pepper and then grill.  The delight of the squash is that Bill ate it!  No really, he ate it.  He 'hates' squash.  I think is it just a fear of starchy vegetables, but can't swear to that!  

Below is the happy meal, the sausage was moist, and flavorful and as mentioned, the squash was a keeper.  

Nota Bene:  As my technique making sausages improves, I am finding that I am getting a better sense of when or if the meat is going to bind well.  The smoked sweet italians did not bind well because I did not really spend enough time squishing the ground meat through gloved hands.  That emulsification process (the technical term for squishing), is more important than I originally thought.  I now know that no matter how coarse or fine the grind on the meat, I have to put in the time to squish it around and get it to stick to itself well.  The rule of hand is that if you grab a handful of the meat, squeeze it slightly, and then open your hand palm down, if the meat is emulsified, it will just stick and hang there, if it needs more work, it will fall off and not cling to itself.