Thanksgiving Sausage Balls

 

If I had kept count through the years, I would bet I have made 10,000 sausage balls!  I've been making them for over 35 years with breakfast sausage, cheddar cheese, and Bisquick.

But I've been seeing a new version on my social media feed lately.  How about substituting the Bisquick with a boxed stuffing mix?  Well, that got my attention!  You can choose any flavor you'd like, but I chose the cornbread variety.

Empty the stuffing mix into a large mixing bowl.  

Pour in 1 cup of boiling water and stir to combine.  Let it cool for a few minutes.

Next, using a large spoon or your (very!) clean hands, mix in the sausage and the shredded cheese.

Spray a rimmed baking sheet with non-stick spray.  Roll the mixture into 1-inch diameter balls and place on the baking sheet.  I had 40 sausage balls with this batch.

Place the baking sheet into the refrigerator for an hour.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Bake the sausage balls for 25-28 minutes until the internal temperature checks as 165 degrees F.

You can serve these little bites of Thanksgiving goodness with cranberry sauce or gravy to dip them.  I had some spiced cranberry jelly from Aldi left over from our Oktoberfest meal.  That made an amazing accompaniment! 

Ground Pork and Cilantro Lime Rice Stuffed Peppers

Through the years, I've made many variations of stuffed peppers.  I've used all sorts of fillings and many different types of peppers.  

Aldi had these gorgeous multi colored bell peppers and I immediately started mentally choosing the ingredients for the filling.

You can use whatever salsa and rice you prefer, but for this recipe these were my choices.

  

I always pre-cook the peppers for about 10-15 minutes before I add the filling.  This way, you're ahead of the game!  Slice the tops off the peppers and set aside.  You'll want to remove the seeds and the membranes from inside the peppers and discard.  Trim the stem from the top part you removed and dice the pepper that remains.  You'll use those bits of goodness in a few minutes.

So now that you have that instruction in your brain, let's go to the ingredients.

You'll need:

5 - 6 medium bell peppers prepped as stated above

Your favorite salsa

1 small yellow onion, chopped

1 T. chopped garlic

3 T. taco sauce

2 - 3 T. fajita seasoning

1 can black beans, rinsed and drained

1 pkg. Cilantro Lime rice, prepared according to package directions

1 can black beans, rinsed and drained

2 cups shredded pepper jack cheese

Garnish:  sliced green onions, cilantro, sour cream

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.  Spray a baking dish with olive oil spray.

Add 1/3 - 1/2 cup of salsa to the bottom of the prepared baking dish.  Fit the prepared bell peppers on top of the salsa.  You may need to slice a little off the bottoms of the peppers to get them to sit upright all nice and level.

Place into oven while you prep the pork filling and rice.

In a large skillet over medium high heat, begin to brown the ground pork while the rice cooks.

When the pork gets about halfway cooked, add the onions, the diced bell pepper, and the garlic.

Now stir in the taco sauce and the fajita seasoning.  Lower the heat to medium low.

Stir in the beans.

Your cilantro lime rice should be finished by this time.

And it gets stirred into the mixture at this point.  Turn heat to off.

Stir in one cup of the shredded cheese.

Carefully remove the peppers from the oven and divide the filling between the peppers.

Sprinkle with the remaining cheese.

Cover the baking dish foil (you may want to spray the foil with nonstick spray before covering the peppers so the cheese won't stick).

Bake for 25-30 minutes until the peppers pierce easily with a knife point.

Remove the foil during the last five minutes or so of cooking to brown the cheese.  You may want to turn on the broiler for a few minutes.

I topped ours with the thinly sliced green onions.  

For plating, add a few spoonsful of salsa on the plate.  Carefully place the pepper on top of the salsa.  Enjoy!

Thai Pork Stir Fry

I've made several variations of this recipe through the years.  The original blog post was Thai Style Pork Burritos.  Once again, I enjoyed tweaking this one a tad and renamed it as Thai Pork Stir Fry.  Sweet Harold did put his filling in a low carb tortilla.  I chose to enjoy mine as pictured above.

Here's the ingredient list:

1 pound ground pork

2 T. grated fresh ginger

3 cloves garlic, crushed

1 small onion, thinly sliced

2 cups coleslaw mix with carrots

3 T. soy sauce

2 T. lime juice

2 T. honey

2 t. ground coriander

1 t. red pepper flakes

2 T. oyster sauce

 

Garnish: fresh cilantro, chopped, 1/2 cup coarsely chopped dry roasted peanuts, sweet Thai Chili sauce

Heat large, non-stick skillet over high heat. Add pork, cook, crumble and stir until pork is no longer pink about 4 - 6 minutes. Add ginger, garlic, onion, and coleslaw mix and stir fry with pork for 2 minutes until vegetables are wilted. 

In a small bowl, whisk together the remaining 6 ingredients.  Pour into the pork/vegetable mixture and stir constantly to blend all ingredients well, about 1 minute.

Garnish with cilantro, peanuts, and Thai chili sauce.  

For a great side, try these Thai Pickled Cucumbers !

Thai Pickled Cucumbers

I love pickled vegetables in any form.  This recipe has all the flavors going on:  sour, sweet, a tad spicy, with lots of crunch to help balance rich or spicy dishes.  I served this alongside the Thai Pork Stir Fry.  Delicious!

If you prepare this first, the flavors can mingle and blend perfectly and by the time your stir fry is ready to eat, these are as well!

You can use the small pickling cucumbers (Persian variety), but I used a seedless English cucumber and cut it up into bite sized chunks.

If you want to add shallots or some finely chopped red onion, that's great.  I had neither so I didn't.  😋

3 Persian cucumbers or 1 English cucumber, sliced or chopped

3 T. finely diced shallot or red onion

1 red jalapeno or Thai bird chili finely chopped....in the alternative 1 t. of dried red pepper flakes

1/2 cup white vinegar or rice wine vinegar

1/4 cup water

3 T. sugar

1/4 t. salt

3 T. chopped cilantro

Place the vegetables and/or red pepper flakes into a bowl.  Stir in remaining ingredients and set aside for 20-30 minutes to allow flavors to blend.

Refrigerate leftovers.

Grilled Boneless Pork Ribs with Small Batch Barbecue Company's Maple Bourbon BBQ Sauce

 

Recently I met the owner of Small Batch Barbecue Company which is located in Trussville, AL.  I purchased two bottles of sauce from him and he encouraged me to try this one on some sort of pork.  Today was the day!

First of all, let's talk about this sauce.  Upon opening the bottle, I was immediately struck by the sweet maple aroma and the earthiness of the bourbon.  This was a unique blend of these two flavors.  The sauce is super thick and I knew this was going to be a huge hit with Sweet Harold.  

Food City had these lovely boneless ribs for sale with their Pick 5 program.  You can purchase select proteins with 5 selections for $19.99.  I decided to marinate these boneless pork ribs in Dale's Marinade for a few hours.

While the grill was preheating, I patted the pork dry with paper towels.  

Then on to the grill and you know how I love to get those grill marks!

I grilled the pork until the internal temperature reached 140 degrees F.  You'll want 145 degrees or more to reach doneness. 

But at this point you'll want to start applying the sauce as the temperature reaches completion.

Look at those brush marks!  That shows how thick this sauce actually is.  Turn a few times while the sauce continues to glaze the pork.  By this time, the aroma was starving us!

We had steamed broccoli and buttery herb rice to go alongside these delicious boneless ribs.

Our verdict?  If you love a thick sauce, a sauce with the winning combination of sweet maple and the subtle smokiness of bourbon, this will be a winner in your book just like it was in ours!

2025 Alabama BBQ Tour: Pickens County - Boss Hogg BBQ, Reform, Alabama

 

We traveled to Columbus, Mississippi last weekend to judge BBQ and we stopped in Reform, Alabama for a mid-afternoon lunch.

Reform is located in Pickens County which is located on the west central border of the state.  Its county seat is Carrollton which is located in the center of the county.

This area had long been inhabited by Native Americans specifically the Creek tribes.  Pickens County was established by the western border of Alabama on December 20, 1820 and was named for Revolutionary war hero General Andrew Pickens.  The county is between Tuscaloosa County and the Alabama-Mississippi state line.

Now back to the BBQ!

Upon entering you'll walk straight toward the "window" to order.  Boss Hogg himself is setting on the opposite side of the window to take your order.

We placed our order and found an empty table to wait on our food.  The dining room is large and the entire time we were waiting/dining, there was a constant stream of customers.

Within minutes, Boss Hogg's brother arrived at the table with our glasses of sweet tea.  Unfortunately, the tea had an unusual taste and we requested an alternative.  He promptly brought replacement Coke Zeros.

Now on to the meal.

Sweet Harold ordered the rib plate with beans and slaw along with sliced white bread.

The servings were an ample portions.  

The ribs were nice and meaty.  There was a light smoke aroma and flavor to the ribs.  The sauce was unique.  Not thick and smoky, not sweet, not thin and vinegar based.  It was almost like a thinned out Heinz 57 sauce.

The BBQ beans were a good consistency and included pulled pork, onions, and bell peppers.  

The slaw was finely chopped and had a nice fresh crunch.  

I chose the pulled pork plate with okra, onion rings, and sliced white bread.

That's a nice looking plate, isn't it?

The pulled pork had absolutely no visible bark.  The meat was extremely tender, but no smoke aroma was present.  It was almost like the pork had been baked or cooked stovetop.

Very flavorful, just not your typical (and expected) pulled pork which had been cooked on a smoker.

The okra was your typical frozen then fried okra, but it was perfectly cooked.  The slices were nice and crunchy, not hard and crumbly.

I always hope the onion rings I order are going to be freshly sliced and battered, then fried.  These were the generic frozen onion rings.  But they were tasty.

A neighboring table had ordered the fried catfish and when I saw the plates being delivered to their table, I got our table runner's attention.  I inquired if a single piece could be ordered.  He said that was an option, but I would get more bang for my buck by ordering the snack or basket of catfish.  So that's what I did.

You can tell by looking at this picture why I decided we needed to try their catfish.  Perfectly seasoned, gently fried to an ideal golden brown, these were so delicious.

I'll admit here that we both agreed that the catfish in quality, taste, and preparation outweighed the BBQ entrees we had ordered.

Standouts:  Catfish

Point Takeaways:  Meh BBQ, generic onion rings and okra, Styrofoam plates, plastic utensils

Our Score:  83