Sausage Patties

Dear Boys,

Your Papa David is what they call the salt of the earth.

Salt flavors.

Just eat a bite of something that we always salt – except without the salt, and you’ll know this for sure.

Potatoes are a good example.  Have you ever had an unsalted potato?   Bleh.

A sprinkling of salt immediately takes a potato from so-so to scrumptious.

What group, including our family – especially our family – is not better for having had Papa be a part of it?

He flavors.  Just like salt.

Salt also preserves.  If you look at “preserve” in the dictionary, you’ll see words like  care for, maintain, continue.  I think if I had kept reading the list of definitions, I would have seen Papa David.  

He certainly does all of those things.

In the earlier picture, Papa and Will were planting beans.

Here he is helping Shelby and Allie do the same.

You were eager assistants that day.

Lee in June 2002

So eager to learn all that Papa was showing you.

Papa David has been caring for the land since he was a boy.  Cultivating it.  Tending it.  Reaping harvests from it.

He also spends time raising cattle, sheep, pigs and chickens.  You won’t find better meat than what Papa so generously shares.

This is a roll of sausage that began on a pig lot in central Kentucky.  The same one your dad worked when he was a boy.

I think Papa told me once that he has the hams and loin put into his sausage.  All I know for sure is that his is the leanest I’ve ever cooked or eaten.

Of course, even the leanest sausage is going to have some fat in it.  That is part of what makes it taste good, after all.

In the past, I fried sausage in a pan on the stove.

I always dreaded it a bit, because this was the aftermath.

Grease splatters.

Grease splatters.

You got it.  More grease splatters.

It was such a mess to clean up.

Then I remembered cooking pans of bacon in the oven.  No grease splatters.  No messy clean-up.

I had to give it a go.

And you know what?  It worked!

Yay for aluminum foil and ovens!  Especially ones that self clean.

Here is an easy way to make sausage patties:

First, call your Papa and tell him thank you for all the hard work that went into the roll of sausage that he so lovingly shared.

Next you’ll need to slice the sausage.  If you do this while the sausage is still partly frozen, it will make it lots easier.

Mine was not as frozen as I would have liked, so I used my hands to help form them into nice little circles.

Cover a baking pan with foil, allowing the edges to stand up.

Place the patties on the foil

until the pan is covered.

Bake at 375 degrees until sausage is well-browned.  Thickness of patties will affect the baking time, but mine cooked about 30-35 minutes.

This is how they should look when they are finished.

Place the patties on a paper-towel-covered plate to drain the grease.

When cooled, you can double bag the sausage patties and place in the freezer for quick breakfasts.

Just take out a couple and heat in the microwave.  Be careful with this, though, as they can go from tender and juicy to hockey puck-ish very quickly.  Just a few seconds in the microwave will do.

With an egg and a slice of cheese, Papa’s sausage makes a breakfast sandwich that will get you going in the mornings.

Of course, the key to good sausage is good meat.

To know how to make that, you’re going to need a little piece of land, a pig, and some long talks with Papa David.

I love you,

Mom