Sweet Italian Sausage

Makes 12 Patties

Ingredients
1 Pound Ground Pork
1 Tb Fennel Seeds
2 Tb Red Wine Vinegar
2/3 Tb Dried Basil
1 Ts Black Pepper
1 Ts Honey
1 Ts Brown Sugar
1 Ts Red Pepper Powder
1/2 Ts Salt
2 Garlic Cloves (Crushed)

Directions
Mix ingredients together by hand in a mixing bowl.  Make sure that all of the spices are spread evenly throughout the sausage mixture.

Once the meat has been mixed with the spices, cover the mixing bowl with plastic wrap and place it in the refrigerator and allow it to sit over night. 

After the sausage meat has rested over night, remove it from the refrigerator and separate it into 12 pieces.  By hand, flatten each sausage into a patty.

Lastly, in a lightly oiled skillet on high cook the sausages.  I would suggest cooking no more than 3 at a time.  As the sausages are cooking, give them a flip when they become brown on one side. 

At this point, you can opt to finish your sausages in a pot of simmering tomato sauce (see the meatball recipe) or you can cook them through on the skillet.  Either way, the sausages are ready to eat when they are no longer pink in the middle. 

Moist Banana Bread

Makes One Loaf

Ingredients
3 Bananas (Cut into "coins")
2 Cups Flour
2 Eggs
3/4 Cups Sugar
1/3 Cup Butter (Melted)
2 Tb Cream Cheese
1 Tb Brown Sugar
1 ts Baking Soda
1 ts Cinnamon
1/4 ts Salt

Directions
Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F.

Mix the flour, eggs, sugar, butter, cream cheese, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon and salt in a mixing bowl until they are smooth and the batter has an even consistency.  The thickness will be similar to that of cake batter.  Next, add in your bananas.  Use a metal spoon to stir in the bananas and use the back of the spoon to crush them.  You want the majority of the banana flesh to be crushed so that it stirs into the batter.  It is acceptable, though, (and sometimes preferred) to have a few lumps when you are done stirring.

Pour the batter into a lightly greased loaf pan and allow it cook on the middle rack of the oven.  It will probably take between 20 and 30 minutes to finish. 

You will be finished when the bread is thoroughly solid in the middle and brown on the outside.  To test the middle you can insert a skewer into the bread to check for done-ness.  If the skewer, when removed from the bread, is clean, your bread has baked through.

After removing the bread from the oven, allow it to cool for 40 minutes.

Once it is cool, you may remove the bread from the pan and cut it into slices.