I've made my own Italian sausage for years using lean ground pork, salt, black pepper and ground cayenne. The red color comes from paprika and you need lots of fennel seed. I've never put any garlic in it (although I love garlic) as that gives it a different, kind of Polish sausage taste IMHO. I enjoy making my own sausage; you can control the ingredients and you know what they always say about sausage: if you saw it made........... I think the ground hot pepper infuses much better into the meat than flaked or chopped. Cayenne is a nice medium hotness but you could sure use habs etc. Sometimes I stuff it into casings; sometimes I just leave it loose for pizza, spaghetti sauce or fried with eggs. Yum, yum! SandyO CH #1146