A couple of earlier threads got me interested in making my own sausage, and I wandered across the meat grinder attachment for Kitchenaid mixers on sale, so I picked it up (they didn't have the stuffer attachment though
). It's been collecting dust for about a month, but last night a picked up some chicken thighs on sale and decided to give it a go.
I cleaned up the chicken first, then ran it through the coarse blade. I was going to dice up some green onion and parsley and run it all through again, but I liked how the chicken came out after the first run, so I just ran the produce through the grinder then mixed it all together in the bowl with some other seasoning. Cut the tops off some green bell peppers, filled halfway with the ground chicken, and into the oven at 425. When the chicken was done and the peppers were starting to blacken on top, I put a Minibel cheese on top of each, then broiled them until the cheese just started to brown. Once done, the skins peeled right off the peppers, and they were really tasty.
The grinder worked great. The chicken went down the feed tube no problem, I expected to spend a lot of time pushing chicken down with the rammer, but never even picked it up. Not sure if I committed some sin by just running the whole veggies through it, but they fed great and really added some great color and flavor. Cleanup was super easy. It added very little time to the overall prep.
Can't wait to get a sausage stuffer now, I'm really happy with the results and ease of use. Last year I stuffed a ham in a pumpkin then steamed the whole thing (Ham-o-lantern)...this year I think I'll stuff smaller pumpkins with different ground meats and veggies and do the same.