With the winter doldrums facing us, about 20 of my friends and I started a January tradition that has turned out to be a highly popular event.

We simply call it Sausage Sunday, because we all turn out to make hundreds of pounds of Italian Style hot sausage.

Many of the guys are avid hunters and we have had plenty of wild game available to experiment with over the years. Elk, moose, mule deer, caribou, bear and whitetail deer have been offered for Sausage Sunday, and we have taken on the challenge of finding the right combination of spices and blends to make a palatable meal.

Although we have hundreds of pounds of meat, plenty of help and some special equipment, you can make it in your own kitchen.

We start out by gathering the wild game that was harvested during the fall season. Venison is my favorite meat and is the type most available to Butler County hunters.

If you're not a hunter, you can buy venison at domestic game farms and specialty stores, but a law prevents hunters from selling it.

When I make a batch of sausage, I like to figure on a 25-pound total weight when I'm finished. We like to make our sausage with a blend of meats and figure out percentages such as 50-50 or 50-25-25. This would be like having 12 pounds of venison with 12 pounds of pork as a blend.

You have to decide what you like and what you are going for in taste, fat content and available meat. When I have a lot of wild game meat, we might add less pork and more venison. I might even do a blend of beef, pork and wild game for a different taste and texture.

Straight venison is extremely lean and tends to be dry when cooked because of the low-fat content. If I was going for low fat, I might add only lean beef, but pork does make it more tender when cooked.

We start with an equal amount of pork and venison that has been cubed and ready for the grinder. Trim off any fat from the venison and excessive fat from the pork.

Take a large tray and alternate the meat cubes through the grinder. This will help you mix the meats better and make well-blended sausage.

We like to grind the sausage mixture twice, so that it is not too coarse and not too fine, as coarse sausage is too chewy and fine sausage can be hard when cooked.

Next, we put the ground meat in a roaster liner or tub so that we can add our seasonings. This is a critical part of the process because if the taste isn't equal throughout the sausage meat, it will result in poor table fare.

We take our seasoning blend and add it to 2 quarts of warm water so that the salt and ground spices merge and can be easily and thoroughly mixed.

When you mix spices, you can go for different tastes by adding and deleting flavorings. You can make it sweeter, hotter, maple flavored, hickory- smoked flavored or plain, according to your tastes.

Sometimes we put a few patties on the griddle and test fry them for taste. Twenty guys can't be wrong when they all agree that's good stuff!

You also need to decide if you want to leave the sausage in 1-pound bulk packages, patties or stuffed in casings.

We have a sausage stuffer and buy casings from the meat counter. They are cleaned but packed in salt and require soaking in warm water before you use them.

This is a basic sausage blend that you might like if you want to try your own Sausage Sunday. The end results are great and the fun is in the camaraderie.

In 2 quarts of warm water, mix and thoroughly stir the following ingredients:Half-ounce of paprika5 ounces of salt,1 ounce of sugar1 ounce of Accent seasoning,1 ounce of fennel seedHalf-ounce of anise1 ounce of ground red pepper1½ ounces of crushed red pepper.Pour the mixture over the ground meat and start kneading it until the whole batch turns the same color and texture, then let it soak in for a bit before packaging or cooking.