Polenta & Sausage Stuffed Peppers and Stout Floats!

On Saturday night, Jay, Maegen, Nelia, Marin and I got together to enjoy the 4 lbs of pork shoulder that had been cooking in their slow cooker for five hours. It was the perfect rainy day dinner entree. We decided on pork soft taco's. A-MA-ZING! I was responsible for a side dish. I looked up a number of stuffed pepper recipes. None of them seemed just right. So, I made one up. It was spicy but, pretty tasty! Here are a few pics along with the recipe. 

Polenta and Sausage Stuffed Peppers:

3 peppers (each cut in 1/2)

1 roll of polenta

3 hot sausages

1 bunch of cilantro

1 small onion

1 clove garlic

3 plum tomatoes

1 jalapeno pepper

salt and pepper to taste

Remove sausages from their casings. In a medium sized saucepan, cook the three sausages completely. In another saucepan, add olive oil, chopped onion and polenta and saute until golden brown. When the mixture is almost finished, add the garlic. Combine cooked sausage, polenta mixture and all remaining ingredients (1/4 bunch chopped cilantro, 3 chopped plum tomatoes, 1 chopped jalapeno pepper and salt and pepper to taste) in a large mixing bowl. Mix.

Place all six pepper halves into the oven for 15 minutes at 350 to soften them up. After you take them out, add the polenta and sausage stuffing and put them back in for the final 15 minutes. When there is 5 minutes left on the timer, take the stuffed peppers out and sprinkle a bit of cheese on them. Then, back into the oven to let the cheese melt. Serve them immediately.  Yum!

...and then this special dessert treat that Jay concocted. The stout float made with Cherry Garcia ice cream and your favorite stout (ideally, a chocolate flavored one). Delish!