Sausage Stuffed Dates

While I was in Chicago a few weeks ago, we ate at a restaurant called Avec. Although our dining experience wasn't great, these stuffed dates, one of their signature dishes, was! Their dates were stuffed with chorizo which had a nice bite to it. Wrapped in smoky bacon and roasted until crispy then served on a bit of tomato sauce. They were great!

I couldn't find chorizo so I used hot Italian sausage and it worked really well. The hot sausage goes really well with the sweetness of the dates and the smokiness of the bacon. Don't use sweet Italian sausage because you need that spice. And make sure you use the big medjool dates so you can get lots of sausage in them!
Here's how I did it.

Bacon Wrapped, Sausage Stuffed Medjool Dates
12 Medjool dates
1 1/2 hot Italian sausages  
6 strips bacon
1 cup tomato sauce

1. Cut a slit in the dates from end to end and remove the pits. Spread the date out a bit so you can form a pocket.
2. Pull the sausage out of the casing in small balls and place them in the date. You need to stuff them quite full so you have a good ratio of hot sausage to sweet date. 
3. Close the date, molding it around the sausage as well as you can. 
4. Cut the bacon strips in half. Place one stuffed date on 1 half slice of bacon and roll it up. 
5. Place the dates on a baking sheet, seem side down so they stay tight while they bake.
6. Bake them in a 400 F oven for 20 minutes and serve on the heated tomato sauce.