Sausage & Goat Cheese Puffs (Plus pasta recipe!)

When I made these sausage puffs, I wasn't planning on writing a blog post about them...but they've gotten so much love over on Instagram, so here I am. These were super easy to make. I had an extra puff pastry dough from when I made the twins homemade toaster strudel (they didn't go over as well as I expected *insert eye roll here*).

I modified this recipe from Joyous Apron. She has some great pictures if you're more of a visual person and need to see what to do.

Ingredients:

• 1 sheet of puff pastry (I used the Pepperidge Farm Puff Pastry--found in the frozen desert section in your grocery store)

• 1 lb of pork sausage

• 4 oz (1 log) of goat cheese

• Siracha

• 1 egg

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400F

2. Thaw the puff pastry using the directions on the package

3. Cut into 9 squares

4. Cook pork sausage until it is no longer pink (I like to cook it a little longer because we like crispy sausage). While cooking, add in as much or as little siracha. I'd guess we typically add 2TBSP of siracha...we like spicy food!

5. Once the sausage is cooked, spoon 1-2 TBSP of sausage diagonally onto each puff pastry square.

6. Top with goat cheese (2-3 tsp)

7. Whisk the egg and use it as glue to close the squares. I just folded the opposite sides together (again, check out Joyous Apron for pictures)

8. Brush the tops of your pockets with the remaining egg

9. Pop in the oven for 15 minutes or until golden brown

Here they are, fresh out of the oven. OMG these were so freaking delicious. I couldn't wait to eat one, so of course I ate it before it cooled down a little and the melted goat cheese burned the roof of my mouth. WORTH IT.

Now, you might be thinking that you have waaaay too much sausage and cheese left over. This is where the pasta comes in. Let's be honest, this isn't a healthy recipe, so lets go ahead and add more carbs.

Ingredients:

• 1lb pasta

• 1 jar of Rosso Pesto Sauce (got it from Aldi!)

• Remainder goat cheese

• Remainder sausage

• 1-2 cups of pasta water

Directions:

1. Boil water and cook your pasta as usual (I've recently started cooking my pasta using the Alton Brown Method)

2. Combine your remaining sausage, cheese and pesto into a saucepan (I hadn't removed the sausage from its pan, so I just added in the cheese and pesto)

3. BEFORE straining pasta, take about a cup or two (depending on how saucy you like) of pasta water and add it into the sausage and cheese mixture

4. Strain pasta

5. Add into sauce mixture

6. Enjoy!

You can easily add so many things into this pasta dish: chicken, spinach, mushrooms, peppers, etc.