Italian Sausage (Provided photo — Yvona Fast)

Sausage is a great convenience food. The pork meat is well seasoned with herbs and spices. You can use it in soups, skillets, casseroles …

There are two main types of sausages: fresh and cured.

Fresh sausage includes breakfast sausage and Italian sausage. These have to be cooked before eating. It is easy to make your own fresh sausage. The secret lies in the seasoning — and you can adjust that to your particular tastes.

You can use sausage casings — available from your butcher — but you don’t really need them. Simply place your ground meat in a bowl, add seasonings, maple syrup and water and mix with your hands. Make into patties and cook in a skillet with a little oil. That’s it! Store in the fridge for a few days or freeze it to keep it longer.

To make cured sausages, like kielbasa or chorizo, the process is more complex. The meat is cured with salt (sodium chloride) or sodium nitrite. After this, they may be fermented, dried and smoked. Commercial cures can be purchased at meat shops or from sausage-making suppliers. These sausages will keep for a long time hung in a cool pantry.

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Breakfast Sausage

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Ingredients:

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1 pound ground pork (or a combination of pork and beef; or add ground venison if you have some).

1/2 to 1 teaspoon sage

1/2 to 1 teaspoon thyme

1/2 teaspoon marjoram

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric

1 tablespoon maple syrup

1 tablespoon water

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Italian sausage

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Ingredients:

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1 pound ground pork (or combination pork and beef; or add ground venison or other game meat if you have some. If using game meat like venison, you may need to add pork fat because it is too lean).

1 1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric

2 teaspoons Italian seasoning (or some of each basil, oregano and thyme)

1/2 teaspoon paprika

1/2 teaspoon fennel

1 or 2 cloves garlic, minced

1 small onion, minced

2 tablespoons water

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Directions:

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Use your hands to mix the meat with the seasonings. Put into casings or make into 12 balls with your hands. Place in an oil-coated skillet and cook over medium heat, about three minutes on each side, until done.

Serve with scrambled eggs or breakfast potatoes. Or mix with veggies, like greens or sweet potatoes, for a breakfast hash. Crumble and mix into a casserole. Or stuff into breakfast burritos.

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Author of the award-winning cookbook Garden Gourmet: Fresh & Fabulous Meals from your Garden, CSA or Farmers’ Market, Yvona Fast lives in Lake Clear and has two passions: writing and cooking. She can be found at www.yvonafast.com and reached at writeyvona@gmail.com