Cider Smoked Sausage

Grilled, smoked sausages simmered with pears in a rich sauce on a chilly fall night will put some much needed heat in your belly especially if you add some chipotle or jalapeno peppers--completely optional.   

Lately, doesn't there always seem to be something missing, wrong, disgusting or plain silly in some of the ideas today's so-called chefs/cooks come up with?  Everybody that gets their face on TV or in a magazine tries their best to complicate things.  Sometimes you don't have to add anchovies or macadamia nuts to come up with a great-tasting dish.  And to add to my media misery, if you live in the country, on a farm or just discovered organic vegetables, you're an expert with a 30-minute show on the Food Network.  Do we really need another cooking show?  On the ridiculous end of the gamut, you can watch 'chefs' running around in a grocery store like out-of-control kids racing grocery carts and then cooking in a makeshift kitchen next to a checkout lane.  Seriously?  That's almost worse than the ladies at the 'club' stores giving out free samples where I'm too embarrassed for all y'all standing in lines to taste a thimble-sized sample of Cheeze Whiz or chicken nuggets to get in line behind you.  Now if this bassakwards state ever passes laws to give out wine samples, I might push you out of the way, however.

Cook this, serve it up with a baked or mashed potato and whatever else you want and you'll have an easy, delicious hearty meal.  We splurge on the weekends and indulge ourselves with carby potatoes and hot bread. We're crazy like that.

Cider Smoked Sausage

optional--1 chopped chipotle or jalapeno pepper

2 pears of your choice, cored, sliced and chunked
3/4 c apple cider
1 TBSP stone ground mustard
12-16 oz smoked pork sausages or brats
2 TBSP butter

In a skillet, saute pears in 1 TBSP butter for 2-3 minutes, stir the mustard into the cider and pour over pears.  Add peppers if you desire the fire.  Cook about 10-15 minutes over high heat until sauce has reduced and thickened.

While pears are cooking, heat grill and cook sausages.  When sausages are done, add them to pears in skillet, cover and cook another 5 minutes.  Just before serving, stir in remaining butter.

You could also use pork chops in place of sausage.

Now, butter those potatoes, throw on a chunk of bread and stay warm.

Bon Petits Cochons!