Sausage Cooked in Red Wine

We got together with friends for a fun, annual event (more on this in tomorrow’s blog), and we all brought parts of the meal.  I just love potlucks!  They are my favorite type of party.  Potlucks are so much fun and they are a good way to see everyone’s creativity and to try new dishes.   I know there are quite a few other people out there who love to cook as much as I do and I just love all the sharing that comes along with potluck get-togethers.  My contributions to the affair were my Greek cannelloni’s, Greek Crepe Cannelloni Stuffed with Beef  and sausages cooked in red wine that I served with my whole wheat potato bread. Whole Wheat Potato Bread .  Both were big hits and were very popular.  We had a light tapas meal.  We also dined on some fabulous sweet roasted pepper crostinis that my friend Priscilla made and finished the meal off with a delicious key lime pie made by my friend Janet.  And of course, we had wine.  We served a Spanish red that paired perfectly with our Spanish/Mediterranean tapas meal.

Ideally, I would have loved to use chorizo for my dish, but I could not find the type of chorizo I was looking for, so instead, I used two other types of sausage.  I used a combination of hot Italian pork sausage and chicken basil sausage.  No one even knew that I switched sausages and the dish was still a big success.

Sausage Cooked in Red Wine

1 1/2-2 lbs sausage, chorizo or other sausage of your choice

olive oil for cooking

1 cup red wine of your choice

2 tsp black pepper

1 TBSP garlic

2 tsp red pepper flakes

fresh thyme

 

Cook the sausage in a hot skillet with olive oil until browned on all sides.

Once the sausages are browned, removed them from the pan and slice them into small bite-sized pieces.  Then return them to the skillet along with all the rest of the ingredients, except the fresh thyme.  Make sure you scrape all the sausage drippings from the pan, and incorporate them into your sauce.  That’s what will really make the sauce perk up.  You only need to continue cooking for about 5-7 more minutes or until the sausages are completely cooked.

Once the sausages are completely cooked, your dish is done.  Add the fresh thyme right before serving and serve over warmed bread with the sauce.  When I made my whole wheat potato bread, the recipe made two loaves.  We ate one earlier and the other one I froze.  I used the second loaf for this dish.  The bread absorbed all the flavors and some of the spiciness of the dish.