Sausage-Stuffed Jalapeno Peppers

Often times, kind people do kind favors for me -- everything from sending & receiving faxes on my behalf while enduring my incessant harassment to lending me books from their school library because my school library isn't gracious enough to offer them for circulation. Often times, I repay them in the best way I can: by cooking or baking. (Future kind people, take note).

Library boy, being the demanding dude that he is (ha), initially requested a 4-course meal (who do you think you are?!), but we settled for a spicy seafood marinara pasta. Fax boy requested sausage + cream cheese stuffed jalapenos. Both dishes, plus a simple salad and cheesy garlic bread, were served and happily consumed. Hooray! Let's begin with...

Appetizer: Sausage-stuffed Jalapeno Poppers

1. Halve, de-vein, de-seed jalapeno peppers and soak them in a bowl of Sprite or 7-Up overnight.

What does this do? It tames the peppers and reduces some of the heat. [more about that here].
Another tip: After working with the jalapenos, promptly wash your hands with soap. Don't do anything idiotic like, I don't know, rub your eyes. -__-

Cooked hot sausage + cream cheese = can't go wrong.

The next day...
2. In a medium saucepan, toss some finely chopped garlic, red onion, and jalapeno peppers in olive oil. Allow the garlic to brown and the spice of the pepper to blend well with the sweetness of the red onion.

3. Add the sausage and cook thoroughly until nicely browned. Turn off the heat.

4. Add 8 oz. package of cream cream into the saucepan and mix everything. Quickly transfer the mixture into a bowl and allow it to cool in the fridge.

I eat while I cook.

After 24 hours in a 7-Up tub, time to remove those suckers. (Notice the gloves - yes, I learned my lesson).

Ooh.

5. Generously stuff the sausage + cream cheese mixture on each half of a pepper.

Before.

6. Wrap each pepper popper with a slice of bacon and poke a toothpick in each to keep everything snug and to prevent unraveling bacon action later.

7. Broil in the oven for ~20 min. or until the bacon is sizzlin' and crisp. About halfway through, flip each popper over so that they thoroughly cook on both sides.

After

Deeeelicious!

Stay tuned for the spicy seafood marinara pasta!

yield: 12
type: appetizer
difficulty: Easy
cost: $$