Homemade Pesto Chicken Sausage–Stuffed Mushrooms

What an awesome challenge theme this month: sausage & mushrooms! (Although, my two younger sons were not quite as excited – they dislike  hate  abhor avoid anything even slightly mushroom-related…)

We figured we would buy our favorite sausage from Sprouts, and then find something mushroom-y to do with it. Probably hunt down some poor defenseless portobellos & stuff 'em. Same ol' same ol'...

"Nothing to see here folks; move along, move along!"

Then I had the brilliant idea that I'd been wanting to make my own sausage (since I'd been trolling some charcuterie sites which had made me drool  whetted my appetite piqued my interest...)

So I ground five pounds of chicken. (It's best to use the skin & fat for flavor, but I only had boneless/skinless.)

I had about a pound of crimini mushrooms that we stemmed, brushed with olive oil, then stuffed with the fresh sausage.

(The sliced potatoes lining the pan? those are the sausage foundations for the antimushroomites...)

 We baked them in a 375° oven until the probe read 175° -- which was about 30 - 45 minutes. The meat was sizzling and turning a nice brown.

I cannot tell you how amazing these tasted! (But, we might or might not have taken another pound of the sausage destined for the freezer and mixed the chopped mushroom stems in and roasted them in muffin cups and devoured them on the spot; barely waiting for them to cool...)

Looking for more Sausage & Mushroom recipes? Look no further than the links below...

An InLinkz Link-up