Cheese and Tomato Sausage Bake

I’m leaving for a weekend in San Francisco in less than 24 hours. Very excited about it. Sadly, I picked the weekend of the Los Angeles Grilled Cheese International to leave town. Wish I could do both, but truthfully, I am a man who rarely wants for cheese. Witness this lovely dish that was cobbled together with leftovers and the perishables I’m racing to eradicate from my kitchen before I leave for the weekend. Kinda hard to look away from these pics, isn’t it?

Truth be told, the top pic is currently my desktop photo. You think it looks good 500 pixels wide? You should see it at 2500 pixels wide!

This dish is fantastic straight from the pan, or packed in a pita (consider it a Classy Hot Pocket). It also goes great over some slightly tosated sourdough or ciabatta bread lightly scraped with a garlic clove.

Cheese and Tomato Sausage Bake

• 10 ounces cherry, grape or sweet tomatoes
• 5-10 pearl onions, blanched
• 1 – 2 cups cheese of your choice (store-bought grated Mexican blend works great, as does crumbled feta or herb goat cheese. I’ve tried them all
• 2 mild Italian sausages
• sprinkle of Kosher salt
• pepper to taste
• 5-7 basil leaves and/or some rosemary
• olive oil

Preheat oven to 500. Combine tomatoes, onions and sausage in a pan (I go with an 8 by 8), season and coat lightly with olive oil and toss. Once in the oven, stir around tomoatoes and onions every 10 minutes or so to make sure all sides blister. After about 25 minutes of cooking, add cheese across the top and let cook for another ten minutes. Remove, let cool and serve!

Tags: basil, cheese, rosemary, sausage, tomato