BrokeAss Gourmet, The premier food, wine and lifestyle blog for people who want to live the high life on the cheap.

Prep Time 0:15

Cook Time 0:35

Making a sausage dish for Valentine’s Day isn’t only a visual alliterative for sex, but also a hearty comfort food that makes the person you’re cooking for feel the intimacy and caring that only a thoughtfully planned meal can provide. Add to this a white wine Dijon sauce with a kinky twist of fresh pear that will make them think you have the mad skillz not just in the kitchen, and you’ve got a very seductive meal on your hands.

A kinky pear Dijon sauce? Yes, go there. Pears, with all their blush and fragrance, add the sexy feminine shape to compliment your butch sausages, and fleshy pears were sacred to Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love. Some medieval European myths indicate that eating pears were believed to induce instant sexual arousal.

Don’t worry about relying on myth; this recipe leaves you enough cash for a decent bottle of wine to seal the deal. You can go over budget and actually buy the Dijon mustard, or you can just stop by a hot dog stand or raid a condiment packet table at a nearby hamburger joint; all you need is a tablespoon (about 4 packets). For the wine sauce, you’ll want a white and white cooking wine does not need to be drinkable — bonus! You can get a white cooking wine at Safeway for up to $3 a bottle, and you’ll have plenty left for either more cooking later, or possibly to distract your date if you burn the sausage.

• INGREDIENTS
• Four decent mild uncooked sausages such as chicken or mushroom $5.99
• Veggie alternate: Tofurky Gourmet Vegetarian Sausages $5.99
• 1 1/2 pears, sliced into pretty, medium-thin wedges $1-2
• One shallot (or mild yellow onion), minced $.97
• 1/2 lb. fresh spinach $1
• 3/4 cup white wine: cheap cooking Chardonnay $3
• Dijon mustard free if you steal it
• Salt and pepper to taste Pantry
• Olive or other cooking oil Pantry

Total Cost of Recipe: $13.00

DIRECTIONS

Preheat the oven to 425. Boil the sausages in water (enough to cover them) for 12-13 minutes, or until no longer pink (veggie sausage users will skip this step; your sausages are already cooked). Grab a baking dish and rub it down with oil (practice for later), lay down a bed of your minced shallots and set the sausages on top. Add the wine and bake for half an hour (40 minutes max); keep an eye on the sausages and move them around occasionally to make sure they color evenly. You’ll want them slightly browned.

Remove from the oven, take sausages out of the liquid and whisk in your four finger discount Dijon. You don’t actually need a whisk; you can make the sauce blend with a fork. But whisks are hot. Make a note of that for later. Set the baking dish on the stove over medium heat while you whisk; medium low if your burners get hot fast. Add the pears and stir them around until they’re warmed through, and taste the sauce as you go along so you can add salt and pepper to bring up the flavors as they blend. If you’re watching someone else make the sauce, ask them to give you a taste — without using your hands.

When pears are warm and the sauce is almost as saucy as you are, arrange the sausages on a thin bed of spinach, and slowly pour the steamy sauce and pears over the sausages. The heat and sauce will soften the spinach delightfully.

You already opened the wine, right? The sauce wants white wine, but I always want red. Fortunately, if you were thrifty, you can add in a decent corner store or even Safeway red for under $10. Yes, you read that correctly. Sure hits to look for are anything from La Vieille Ferme (French), Taurino’s Salice Salentino (Italian), and you can usually find an Argentinian Malbec — I saw a decent one at Safeway for $9.98. Also, Cellar No. 8 (Cabernet) has the appeal of looking like a “No on 8” wine, average cost is $8, and it’s getting a cult following. It’s impossible to go wrong with anything from Bonny Doon Vineyard (California), and their Big House Red retails for $7.98, as does their house white, Ca De Solo Big.

Share the one plate. Feed each other, you sexy Valentines. You’re what makes the world spin.