Hors d'oeurves anyone?Here, try my Tater Pig Puffs!

First, and most importantly, let's discuss the inspiration for this dish. While we all know that this site is inherently gay, it hasn't been nearly gay enough for me lately, so I thought I'd toss some sprinkles of fabulous on this bitch and tip my metaphorical hat to my personal deity:

Cher.

For this challenge, I channeled not just any incarnation of Cher. I channeled Cher as Ms. Rachel Flax of the grossly under-appreciated film Mermaids.



If you've ever seen the movie, you may recall that Rachel Flax's sole cooking style consists of hors d'oeurves.

With that inspiration, I set forth to create the Tater Pig Puff.

Ingredients:

1 package (consists of 2 sheets) of puff pastry
1 large (or 2 medium) Idaho russet potatoes
3 good sized sausage links (for you size queens)
1 cup medium or sharp shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 cup heavy cream
3/4 cup sour cream
1 Tbs. butter
2 Tbs. finely chopped chives
Kosher salt
Freshly ground pepper
Makes approximately 30 Tater Pig Puffs

Directions:

Puff pastry needs to thaw for approximately 40 minutes on a counter top before you can start working with it, so prepare for that wait time accordingly. Then preheat your oven to 400 degrees, set some water up for boiling on the stove top and get ready to have an inappropriate amount of fun!

I started out by peeling the potato, chopping it into thick pieces and tossing them into a pot of boiling water. The idea here is to make a good, basic mashed potato. I didn't take a picture of this because I was drunk at the time.



After the potato gets going, chop up the sausage into fairly small pieces and throw into a skillet with a bit of salt and pepper. I used Falls Brand sausage to make this an extra authentic experience. Go Idaho! Anyhoo, fry the sausage bits on medium to medium-high heat for about 7 minutes. After it's done cooking, drain it on a paper towel-lined plate.

While the sausage is cooking, you can cut up your pieces of puff pastry to the desired size - about 1 1/2 inches square each. Put the puff pastry squares on an ungreased baking sheet and cook in a 400 degree oven for 8 minutes. They will come out of the oven looking comically puffy like this:



After letting those cool down for a minute, you can smoosh them down with your (clean) fingers.

Your potato should be done by now (about 18 minutes), so it's time to mash it up with 1 Tbsp. of butter, 1/2 cup of heavy cream and a lot of salt and pepper. Best to do this with a handheld mixer, but manually will work too.

After your potato is mashed and your sausage is cooked and drained, it's time to start piling the ingredients onto your smooshed down puff pastry squares. Like so:



You'll start with a sprinkling of cheese, then a tablespoon of mashed potato, then a sprinkling of little sausage bites. Put the baking sheet back into the 400 degree oven for another 4 to 5 minutes.

Top off with a dollop of sour cream and a few finely chopped chives and VOILA!



I have to say, I wasn't expecting these appetizers to actually be as good as they were. I was going for funny, but I accidentally ended up with delicious! And they look good too!

In closing, I would like to thank Cher. For everything. Amen.