Roasted Sausage and Grapes

We hadn't made this recipe in about 5 years, but made it again recently and LOVED it! The cookbook gives a basic recipe for mashed potatoes along with it, and we use the grape sauce as a gravy, mixing sausage, mashed potatoes, and grapes in every bite. Noelle didn't want the sauce, but loved everything else.

Serves 6 to 8, so I cut it about in half.

• 3 lbs Italian sausage, cut into 3 inch lengths.
• 3 T unsalted butter
• 2.5 lbs red or green seedless grapes, stemmed (6-7 cups)
• 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar

Preheat the oven to 500º. Bring a large pot of water to a boil over high heat. Prick the sausages with the tip of a knife and add them to the boiling water. Boil for 8 minutes, drain and set aside. Melt the butter in a large roasting pan over low heat. Add the grapes and toss to coat them with the butter. Transfer the parboiled sausages to the pan and push them down into the grapes so they will not brown too quickly. Roast the sausages and grapes in the preheated oven, turning the sausages once, about 25 minutes. With a slotted spoon, transfer the sausages to a heated serving platter (we put them in a pyrex and stuck them back in the turned off oven).

Place the roasting pan on top of the stove over a medium high flame and add the balsamic vinegar. Stir to scrape up the browned bits on the bottom of the pan and cook the vinegar and grapes until they are thick and syrupy, about 5 minutes. Mash the grapes slightly as you are stirring. Pour the sauce over the sausages and serve immediately, accompanied with mashed potatoes.