Tailgating At The Battle For NY

Wait for it, wait for it...FRENCH TOAST CASSEROLE!

So last Sunday was obviously a huge game for both the Jets and the Giants.  Not only was it the battle for NY, but there were huge playoff implications.  So it only seemed fitting that we set up a big tailgate for the pre-party.  Check out the rest of the tailgate and pictures after the jump.

We had about 60 beers, 15 people, 5 bags of chips, 3 parking spaces, 2 dishes of french toast casserole, and 1 tray of spicy sausage & peppers.  I haven't taken algebra in a while, but I'm pretty sure the sum of all that is equal to a great NFL tailgate.  And to be completely honest, we commented, multiple times, on how impressed we were that we were able to put something together so well without any major casualties (organization is not always our strong point). 

The above picture was a hunk of french toast casserole.  I'm not exactly sure of the recipe, but it's essentially your basic french toast ingredients, plus a little extra butter and some brown sugar, all cooked together in a casserole dish instead of on the stove-top.

For my part, I had decided to make sausage and peppers (with onions of course, but for some reason they always seem to be omitted from the title of this dish, but I'm not Italian, so when in Rome...) and I figured that since it was December 24th, I should get spicy sausage to keep us warm in the sharp New Jersey air.  The best part about deciding on this dish was that I could make it the night before, and it would only get better sitting in the fridge overnight when the flavors can really all get to know each other and develop some great synergy.

Cooking
I unabashedly started the process by chopping up some bacon from a beautiful double smoked block of pork belly that I found at the supermarket.  I would use that bacon grease as the common denominator throughout the rest of the dish.  After removing the bacon, I seared off the sausages in the same pan.  After removing the sausages, I tossed in 1 large onion (rough chop) and 2 bell peppers (rough chop) with a little bit of olive oil.  After the veggies cooked down a bit, I added some minced garlic and a few minutes later, some nice dry red wine...just a splash.  I let all of that cook for a few more minutes, letting it reduce most of the juice.  After that, I mixed everything together in an aluminum tray and covered it.  The heat of everything together would continue to cook the sausages a little bit, but I wanted those a bit undercooked so they wouldn't be dry and overcooked when we heated it up the next day.

The result was great.  We brought some rolls and made a bunch of sandwiches.  All of the juices from the sausages and vegetables had released overnight and made a great pan sauce to spoon (spatula - the tailgate wasn't planned that well) over the sandwiches.  The spice from the sausages warmed us up on the cold December morning and it made a great compliment to a Coors Light.

Eating

He's a model, but you would never know it by the ugly jersey he's wearing.

Giants and Jets fans breaking bread