I made this dish just last night. Its delicious! Although last night I added about 1/2-3/4 lbs of cubed pork tenderloin. CHARCROUTE GARNIE Serves 4 to 6 A blend of French and German cuisine from the Alsace region of France. Even if you hate sauerkraut, you will love this dish. 16 oz Hillshire Farm smoked sausage, cut into 1/4" thick disks 2 small onions chopped 3 cups sauerkraut 5 medium Yukon gold potatoes, cubed 6 tbsp butter 1 cup white wine (Riesling) black pepper 2/3 cup apple sauce Boil potatoes in a large pan over medium heat. Cook sausage and onions for about 10 minutes. Add sauerkraut and cook for another 15 minutes. Drain potatoes and add to pan. Add butter, wine, apple sauce and pepper. Simmer and stir until most of the liquid is absorbed. Serve with a strong German beer.

I cook the sausage in a very old, very seasoned cast iron skillet, using a slotted potato masher to squish it down, then scrape it with a wooden flat beveled spoon - spatula. I continue doing this while it cooks over med high heat. It breaks up nicely and you can easily get it to the size crumbles you want quickly with very little clean up. This is a recipe I have cooked for years and adapted it to our ever changing tastes. It came from a magazine that adapted it from "The New Chili Cuisine" by Nancy S. Hughes. I am cooking this for dinner tonite as the rain, chill and gloom just won't seem to leave. ~* My changes (almost the entire recipe, but I do not want to take credit for the original ~ which I have included) SAUSAGE, WHITE BEAN AND PASTA CHILI 1 lb mild Italian sausages, casings removed ~* Hot Italian 2 14.5 oz cans diced tomatoes, undrained ~* Del Monte Petite diced tomatoes w/ jalapenos ~* Onion - coarsely chopped 14 oz chicken broth ~*32 oz homemade chicken or turkey broth 4 oz chopped green chilis, rinsed & grained ~* 1/2 c(?) chopped sliced jalenpoes from jar I always have - amt - to taste so not to spicy 2 tsp paprika ~*omit 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper ~* Chipotle red pepper (McCormicks) 2 T ground cumin ~* Chipotle Tabasco sauce to taste 15 oz can Cannellie beans, rinsed & drained 2/3 cup tiny pasta, cooked - makes 1 1/3 cups ~* omit often Cook sausage breaking it into small chunks until lightly brown. * Remove sausage and blot excess grease Saute the chopped onion and chopped jalapenos in the same skillet until tender. In a small dutch oven or heavy saucepan, add the tomatoes and their liquid, chicken broth, green chilis, and spices. Add the sausage & onion. Stir well to combine. Bring to a boil, reduce heat & simmer, uncovered for 25 minutes. Remove from the heat, stir in beans & pasta ~ * I add the pasta to the individual bowls. Reheat & serve. ~ Top with fresh Parmesan. Serve with cornbread and or tortilla chips. This is very quick and easy. I hope all my changes don't intimate you. You can make this as spicy as you want - or not! It also freezes very well!

I know many of you have made sausage, so I hope this isn't too detailed. Our Smoked Hungarian Kielbasa (Kolbász in Hungarian) recipe: 10 lbs. pork, trimmed of gristle and bone and cubed (we use 90% pork butt or picnic shoulder and 10% pork jowl) Or 50% venison and 50% pork (using venison, we increase the pork jowl, for example 5 pounds of venison, 3.5 pounds of pork butt and 1.5 pounds of jowl) or 60% venison and 40% pork or 70% venison and 30% pork or use whatever meat combination you like. For each pound of meat, these are the spices we use initially (we final season and taste it later): 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon pepper 1 teaspoon paprika (sweet Hungarian) 1/2 teaspoon dried marjoram 1/4 teaspoon dried savory 2/3 teaspoon good garlic powder (not garlic salt) 1/2 teaspoon yellow mustard seeds For a 10 lb. batch, we use a total of these ingredients: 2 cups powdered milk 2 tablespoons sugar 1 teaspoon powdered mustard 2 cups liquid (we used 1-1/3 cups of water and 2/3 cups chardonnay wine) Pictures are from an all-pork batch, so if you're using a mixture, get a good mix on the trays. Freeze the meat. Put your cubed meat into the freezer until partially frozen. This allows the grinder to cut the meat cleanly. Shallow trays or cookie sheets work great. Keep everything very cold from start to finish. We even put the grinder parts in the freezer. We mix the seasonings, powdered milk and the liquid together, blend well and let sit in the fridge for a while to meld the flavors. Here’s our meat coming out of the grinder (excuse the mess :-). We like a medium grind, but it's personal preference. Put the ground meat into a mixer or a very large pot or bucket if you’re going to mix it by hand. Add the seasonings. Thoroughly mix the seasoning liquid into the meat, while retaining the texture and not “mushing” the meat. This is hard to do when you’re mixing by hand - your hands will be numb from the cold and your arms will hurt from trying to stir with a spoon. We did it that way for years, so I literally feel the pain. If using a mechanical mixer, don’t overmix the meat. We did ours for only about a minute. Take a small ball and make a patty for tasting. Fry in a pan until cooked through and check the seasonings. Don’t try to cook it in a microwave - you won’t get the same flavor as frying it on the stove. We needed a bit more salt (about another tablespoon), a bit more sugar (about a tablespoon), and a bit more liquid. We mixed the salt and sugar into another 1/4 cup of chardonnay and mixed the meat for just a few more seconds. We’ve learned it’s better to slightly under-season the sausage if you’re not sure. Here’s what our meat looks like after mixing. Still a lot of texture but the orange from the paprika is pretty evenly disbursed throughout. Chill the meat until you’re ready to begin stuffing. You can leave it in the fridge overnight if you like. Lightly pack the meat into your stuffer. This is a hand-cranked one that holds about five pounds of meat. Casings are pretty sturdy and they will stretch quite a bit. Stuffing is one of those things that you just have to practice. Start stuffing. Stuffing is easier with two people - one to crank and the other to form the sausage. DH cranks and I make sure the casing is evenly filled (don’t overstuff or the casing can split) and keep as much air out of the sausage as possible. If I get any huge air bubbles in the sausage, I just prick it with a needle or pin. We’re making “horseshoes” about 20 inches long. It also helps to put some water on the table so the sausage glides around and doesn’t stick to the countertop. When they’re long enough, stop cranking the stuffer and tie off the end tightly with another piece of string. Leave the string ends about 4-6 inches long, so you can hang these after smoking. Tie another piece of string about an inch or so away from the sausage end (this will be the beginning of the next horseshoe) then cut between the two pieces. Put them into the refrigerator overnight, uncovered, to blend the flavors and dry the casings slightly. The next day, we’re ready to smoke them. We have a smoker box in our gas grill - if you don’t have one of those, just make a pouch of heavy-duty aluminum foil, fill with soaked wood chips, poke a few holes in the top, and put it right on the grill. We're using mulberry, pecan and apple wood. The fire bricks act kind of like a pizza stone to absorb the heat and they also protect the sausage if the wood in the smoker box happens to catch on fire (which happens often - keep a spray bottle of water handy). Smoke the kolbász until the internal temperature is 150° F. It took ours a little over three hours to reach that temperature (and it was about 38° outside for reference). When done smoking, drop the kolbász into an ice bath to quickly bring the temperature down to about 90°. Then hang at room temperature overnight to cure. For long-term storage, we’ll vacuum seal and freeze them.

Will you give us the recipe? Sounds really good!