Lasagna with Italian sausage I made myself. New sausage recipe supposedly designed to be used in slow simmered red sauce to keep the sausage flavorful while adding flavor to the sauce. Too much fennel and black pepper. My regular sausage calls for 50% less black pepper and almost half the fennel. It makes for good portion control as I can only eat a small block before I'm fenneled out. I made a lot of the sausage (loin and belly) and the rest of it I'm cutting 50/50 with ground beef for meatballs. Should be about perfect if I just salt, parmesan and garlic the ground beef.