Sausage Bites

The ketchup lurked in the shadows, waiting to strike.

Every now and again, there comes a time when you can't take gigantic, wholesome, American bites of your food. Maybe you're meeting your impending in-laws for the first time, and one of them is the town sheriff. Maybe you're throwing a fancy dinner party to finally prove to your friends and family that you're insane. Maybe you just have tiny untrustworthy hands. In any event, it's useful to know how to make some bite sized awesomeness that manages to pack a whole lot of flavor into a small package. #innuendo

Ingredients:

1 lb Polish Sausage

3/4 cup Heinz Ketchup (Normally I don't advocate the use of a specific brand. But come on. Unless you make homemade ketchup or you don't have taste buds, there are no substitutes)

2 Lemons

1 standard-issue Onion
1 package of Fillo Shells

1 TBSP Light Brown Sugar

1 tsp Olive Oil

1 average-sized human's pinch of Salt

The first thing you need to do is make some friends. Because nothing's more sad than eating a tray of party food alone. So work on those personality defects, buy some new clothes, and get cracking on that. Once that's taken care of, chop your Polish Sausage into itty bitty sausage chunks. Then dice your Onion, and sauté it in a saucepan along with your Oil and your official Pinch 'O Salt. The party line is to let it cook until it "starts to get some color," which sounds more like yuppies talking about how they spent their summers than it sounds like cooking, but what can you do? I suppose you could give more reasonable instructions. Cook them for about 3 minutes, until they start looking yellowish, smell awesome and oniony, and aren't as hard as they used to be. Toss your Sausage in to the pan (#innuendo) and let it cook down, stirring occasionally, for about 3 more minutes.

Now it's time for the fun part, and by "fun," I mean "messy." So I guess I experience fun the same way that toddlers and the profoundly drunk do. Toss in your brown sugar, and stir it about until it melts. Then add in your Ketchup and stir it together until it forms a thick gloppy sausage mess. Cut your Lemons in half, and squeeze the crap out of them until they give up their delicious juice, which you should add to your pan. Be careful not to let any of the approximately 174 seeds that live in each lemon drop in with your juice. Pick out the seeds you failed to keep out of your pan, throw a lid on there, turn the heat all the way down to low, and let it cook for about 20 minutes. You'll know it's ready when your entire house smells like lemony, sausagey awesomeness. Also by the clock reading 20 minutes later than when you started.

They pair well with too much scotch. But then again,

so does everything.

Once your sausage mixture is ready, arrange your shells as snootily as you can on a serving tray. Dish a little bit (Or, you know...a LOT. Probably too much. Too much.) of your sausage mix into each shell. And there you have it! Bite-sized, delicious morsels perfect for an unfortunate dinner party, a more fortunate actual party, or for morosely consoling yourself on your failure to make any friends at the beginning of the second paragraph. The only thing left to do is put the delicious bites of sausage in your mouth (#in....your endo)