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Mrsnad:

You know our friend Andrew got a wild hog, right? And gave us some of the meat? Well, I cooked up some of the ground meat that he gave us, made it into sausage patties. It was very sticky stuff and I was having trouble getting it to form the nice thin patties the way we like them. It just stuck to my fingers. But I stumbled upon a solution...

Here's what I did...

I took the meat, divided it up into golf-ball sized balls, then placed a little ball on a square of plastic wrap. Then I sprinkled it with the sage, salt and pepper. Then I used the plastic wrap to knead the spices into the ball of meat. That way, it didn't stick to my fingers at all! When I got it thoroughly kneaded, I used the plastic wrap to shape it into a ball again, then, still using the plastic wrap, I was able to flatten it out pretty flat...just using the palm of my hand to smash it around inside the plastic wrap! Then I gently peeled one side of plastic wrap off, flipped that side of the meat onto my hand, then gently peeled the other side off so that the thin sausage was resting in my hand. Then plop! In it went, into a lightly greased cast iron skillet. It cooked up beautifully and by the end of the experiment, I had some pretty nice round sausages cooking...the first ones were a bit sloppy, till I got the hang of it!

Then the boys proceeded to eat every smidgen of it. All I had left was the grease. The GREASE! I tossed in some flour and sautéed the flour till brown, then added milk and made a batch of cream gravy! Mmmm! I hate to say, but I ate the entire skillet full of cream gravy with some bread and a coke!

It was delicious.

Good solution 2J. Nuther helpful hint if you need it, which you may not...

... when I work with meat like that I like my plastic thicker than regular plastic wrap so I slit open the sides of a Ziplock sandwich bag and use it. Sometimes the meat still wants to stick to the plastic so I just use my finger and rub cooking oil over the plastic so the meat doesn't stick to it.

Also, if you'll get a little bowl of cold water and set it where you're working, get your hand wet in it before you pick up the pressed patties and it will keep them from sticking to your fingers then.