Happy Foodie Birthday to Me!

So last Wednesday was my 51st birthday — yes, I'm officially over 50 — and because my natal day fell in the middle of the week... the last week of the school term for both my daughter and my Lovely Bride©... we didn't celebrate until Sunday, a combined birthday and Mother's Day dinner at one of our favorite local Mexican restaurants. But other than briefly mentioning a delicious blood orange margarita, it's not the meal I'm going talk about here.

Instead, it's the birthday gifts I opened before we headed out to dinner, all loaded with foodie goodness. First, the LB® got me the food grinder attachment for the KitchenAid stand mixer I scored for Christmas... and then doubled down with the sausage stuffer kit! Yeah, I saw the guy on No Reservations who stuffed sausage perfectly by hand, but I'm not too proud to use any labor-saving tools I can.
I've been talking big about making my own sausage; now I'll be forced to make good. Maybe I'll start with the couple sausage recipes in Primal Cuts, which I picked up for cheap at our late, lamented Borders' liquidation sale.
But wait, there's more! Not only did I get the meat grinding tools (let's be serious here: KitchenAid may call it a food grinder, but I'm'a be grinding meat), I also got a cool rack for making grilled stuffed jalapenos from my sister, and from my loving daughter, I got a no-fry corn dog maker from ThinkGeek. Yeah, I know Alton Brown would say it's a rotten unitasker... but... but... food on a stick, dude; what's not to love? I'm imagining making sausage links with locally grown meat and homegrown herbs and hot peppers, and then turning them into homemade corn dogs with batter also incorporating homegrown herbs. Cool, eh?

Oh, yeah, one more thing: To put the very cherry on my birthday Sundaye, I also got Laura Werlin's Grilled Cheese, Please! cookbook, which should further The Quest® greatly. Look for a full post on that in the coming days.