D: Crescent-Wrapped Sausages

So, here’s my second installment in the Pillsbury Bakeoff. This is a recipe that we’ve actually been making for a couple of years now, but it required some refinement before we finally submitted it:

Crescent-Wrapped Sausages

(The sausage guys are the ones on the left. I did two different recipes at the same time this night, to maximize my RSTR (recipe submission trial rate))

4 large spicy italian sausages, casing removed
1 teaspoon(s) McCormick Rosemary Leaves
1-1.5 tablespoon(s) Country Dijon Mustard
1/4 cup(s) Spinach, chopped
2 medium Roma tomatoes, chopped
8 Pillsbury Big and Flaky Refrigerated Crescent Dinner Rolls
1/4 cup(s) Freshly-grated Parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 350F. Cut sausages in half, and then in half again lengthwise. Place sausages in frying pan over medium heat. Grind the rosemary leaves using a mortar and pestle or spice grinder, and sprinkle over the sausage. Allow the sausage to fully cook, turning occasionally, 5-10 minutes.

Lay out the crescent rolls on a baking sheet. Lightly spread mustard over each. Place one half of a sausage on the roll, then some spinach and tomato, and the other half of the sausage (sandwiching the spinach filling). Sprinkle Parmesan cheese over the top.

Roll up each crescent roll around the sausage/spinach filling. Place baking sheet in the oven and cook for 12 minutes, or until the crescent rolls are golden-brown on top. Serve (2/serving) and enjoy!

It turns out that the tricky bit about this recipe is getting everything to cook properly and in a reasonable amount of time. In the past when I made this, I didn’t precook the sausage at all, but then they sit in the oven for much longer (especially because the sausages are covered up partially, so you get this weird half-cooked thing going on). The problem is then the crescent rolls are way overdone, and pretty soggy from the sausage juices.

So then I decided that I would partially precook the sausage, and partially precook the crescent rolls. A word to the wise: don’t partially precook crescent rolls. It just doesn’t work. At all.

And, even with partially precooking the sausage, they still didn’t come out cooked all the way through, so I finally ended up with the incarnation I have above.

This is by far the most traditional recipe I submitted to the bakeoff. It’s also probably my second-least-favourite, because it’s not very healthy, original, or filling. But who knows? Maybe it’ll win.

*snicker*