Garlic, Cheese & Sausage Bites

Last month I discovered a wonderful blog, SUNITA'S WORLD. I love visiting frequently because of the beautiful pictures and the lovely way she writes. Sunita hosts a monthly event that is a truly terrific idea; it's called THINK SPICE. When I saw that this month's theme was GARLIC, how could I possibly resist!?! Nate and I both LOVE, and I mean LOOOOOOVE garlic. There can never be too much garlic in a dish for us- we even eat it all by itself!! (People at work love that the next day, I'm sure.) I honestly attribute the fact that the two of us do not get sick very often to the amount of garlic we eat.



Of course when the main ingredient is one of your very favorite things coming up with ONE recipe can get a little overwhelming! Fortunately Nate and I brainstormed together and came up with these little guys~
Thank you for hosting a wonderfully creative monthly event that I hope to participate in often. Please visit Sunita's blog- Sunita's World to see all the delicious garlic recipes, and get inspired!



Garlic, Cheese & Sausage Bites
Makes: 24 bites
Source: Me, Beth G, & Nate the garlic genius...

1 8oz block of cream cheese, softened
1 spicy Italian turkey sausage
1 head of garlic + 1 1/2 tsp chopped garlic
Garlic powder
Garlic salt
Black pepper
Red chili flakes
Olive oil
Won Ton Wrappers
Non-stick cooking spray

Preheat the oven to 375. Cut the top off the head of garlic and place it on a baking sheet covered with foil and pour olive oil over it. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until golden brown and cloves are soft & mushy. (this can also be done in the toaster oven :O)
Cut the raw sausage open and throw away the sausage casing, brown the sausage in a skillet until completely cooked.
Chop 1-2 cloves raw garlic, about 1 1/2 tsp.
In a large bowl combine cooked sausage, cream cheese, roasted garlic, raw garlic a pinch of red chili flakes, and seasoning- I just shook in a bit of the garlic powder, garlic salt, & pepper (probably around 1/4 tsp each, maybe a bit more) and mix with a hand held electric mixer until all ingredients are well combined.
Spray a mini-muffin tin with non-stick cooking spray. Add a won-ton wrapper one cup of the muffin tray and fill with about 1 to 1 1/2 Tbsp of the garlic cheese mix. Pinch the won ton wrapper together to seal, then spray with non-stick cooking spray, repeat until the whole tin is full of lil' garlic bites!
Bake at 375 for about 30 minutes or until they are golden brown and gorgeous!
The tops will open up a bit- but I thought they were reminiscent of little garlic cloves and was happy with how they came out.
They need a bad ass dip of some sort but I ran out of time Thursday evening and the nagging cold I've had all week finally forced me to give up and head to bed :)