I promise all my post will not be recipes, but here lately I have actually had the time (and energy) to cook! I absolutely love cooking; it is possibly my favorite thing to do. I also really enjoy watching Food Network, even though I am still upset about the whole Paula Deen scandal. Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives is one of my favorites. The other night I was watching it and they were at the Empire Brewing Company in Syracuse, NY. I definitely added this to places I would like to visit. I looked at their menu and it looks like they have a huge variety! Pizza, Burgers, TexMex, you name it! Here is the link to their Lunch/Dinner menu! http://www.empirebrew.com/pdf/menu.pdf On the show they made Sweet Fire Sausage Fajitas that looked looked absolutely delicious!! I looked on the Food Network website for the recipe for them and it wasn't on there. So I looked on YouTube and found the clip from the show and I watched it over and over until I could get a general idea of the recipe and ingredients. Here is what I came up with. I am sure it is not exact but they sure did taste good! I guess it will have to cure my craving until I get to try the real thing!!!
The ingredients I used were:
14 ounces of Bryan's Smoked Sausage
1/2 cup plus 1/4 cup of Brown Sugar
1/2 cup Molasses
3 Bell Peppers- I used 1 red, 1 green and one orange just to make it pretty
1 Onion
1/2 cup of Orange Juice
1/2 cup of Soy Sauce
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons of Olive Oil
2 cloves of Garlic
Shredded Taco Cheese
Tortillas
Southwest Chipotle Mrs Dash
*Their recipe calls for Cilantro but the store was out of it so I didn't use any and it was just as good without it
First I chopped up my peppers and onions and tossed them in a little olive oil (like 2 tablespoons) and some salt and pepper.
Next I wrapped them in foil and put them on the grill to let them soften. About 20 minutes or until I get everything else prepped.
Then I made the sauce that has to be simmered with the grilled veggies. Mix the 1/2 cup of orange juice, 1/2 cup of soy sauce, 1/4 cup of olive oil, 2 cloves of garlic finely chopped, 1/4 cup of brown sugar and some fresh ground pepper. The Empire Brewing Company uses Andouille Sausage, which is a very spicy sausage (hence the Sweet Fire name of the recipe.) The store did not have any of it either so I just mixed in a tablespoon of Mrs Dash Chipotle into the sauce to give it a kick.
Next I removed the veggies from the grill and put them in the skillet, covered them with the sauce and let it simmer on medium-high heat.
On DDD they let the sausage marinate over night in equal parts brown sugar and molasses. I did not have the ingredients the night before to do this step so I just mixed up the 14 ounces of sliced sausage, 1/2 cup of brown sugar and 1/2 cup of molasses and let it simmer on low heat in a separate skillet while the vegetables were in the other.
After letting the vegetables simmer for about 20 or 30 minutes, until all the sauce had soaked into the vegetables and they had caramelized really nicely I dipped out the sausage, not using the extra sugar sauce they were cooking in, and mixed them into the vegetables. Then I topped it with Shredded Taco Cheese. We ate it on Tortillas with a side of rice.
They were very good, especially for trying to copy them without a recipe! Let me know what you think and if you try them!
