A few weeks back we made a trip down to Charleston to see Garth Brooks, and while we were there we visited the local Farmers Market. We're lucky enough that during warm weather seasons it's just outside of our hotel ... literally, you walk out of the side door and within 15 feet, you're in the back of someone's tent.
The last few times we've been, we've said that we should bring a cooler, but of course, we forget every time. Well, not this time my friends (although I did didn't get the size cooler I wanted). We were originally looking for Rio Bertolini, who makes the best pasta you can find, but I demanded that while we were there we had to look for Meathouse Butcher too. We first fell in love with Rio Bertolini when we picked up a few boxes of ravioli when they came up to Greenville's farmers market. Meathouse Butcher has been at the Charleston farmers market every time we go, but again ... never had a cooler to bring it home in.
We pulled up to the farmers market and the very first 2 booths were Meathouse Butcher and Rio Bertolini. I'm 99% sure that as we pulled into the drive we each heard angels sing AAAAHHHHHHHHH!
We walked away with 3 boxes of ravioli from Rio Bertolini, a pack of Jalapeno-Hickory Bacon, a pack of Boudin Sausage, and a pack of their Bourbon & Cherry Pork Sausage.
We had been debating on what to actually do with the sausages, but then we were watching American Diner Revival one night and Amanda Freitag made a pig in the blanket with a full sausage link for one of the diners. As were were watching it, we both turned and looked at each other and said, "oooh that's what we can do with the Bourbon & Cherry sausage!"
So here we are ... a Bourbon & Cherry Giant Pig in a Blanket.
We took the 2 full sausage links.
Seared them in a cast iron pan.
Kind of use the technique of doing a wellington, and put them in the fridge for a few minutes. Once they were out, we rolled them up in puff pastries. We cut the excess off and pressed the extra pieces together for pig #2. No need in using 2 sheets and wasting the excess.
Rolled them up and placed them on a baking pan.
Rubbed the top with some melted butter, then added onion powder, garlic powder, parsley, basil, chives, and smoked pepper. Then put it in a preheated over at 400 for 20 minutes (we originally did 15, but then put them back in for another 5 to finish up).
Once they came out ... pure amazingness ...
I'm so good, I actually made my cut right on one of the real cherries.
We're debating if we can talk Rio Bertonlini's people into bringing up some Meathouse sausage when they visit the Greenville fresh market this Summer. I will DEFINITELY be taking a larger cooler when we visit Charleston again, and we will DEFINITELY be making these again.
