BASTA!! Sausage Stuffed Dates

Since I'm visiting IOWA CITY this week, I'm going to talk about my favorite restaurant in the State of Iowa.

2015, my cousin Kim and I had lunch Iowa City at a place called BASTA.

It's in the charming downtown -- just a few blocks away from the Old Capitol building.

I was so impressed, I wrote a Yelp review:

The Restaurant: A classic, sophisticated interior with an intricate black and white hexagon tile floor. A long elegant mahogany wood bar dominates one side of the restaurant. The wood fire pizza oven can be seen from every seat in the house. The booths and chairs are comfortable, with real linen napkins, heavy silverware, large coffee cups and a carafe of ice water on the table.
(P.S. Spotless, comfortable bathrooms).

The Food: Appetizer: Sausage stuffed Dates. Really? In Iowa City? Wowsa. The presentation was lovely -- served in a piping hot iron skillet. Four large dates, crispy on the outside, and sweet and chewy on the inside. The tomato sauce had a bite to it. Simply delicious...I will be trying to recreate this dish for the rest of my life.

And that is EXACTLY what's happened.

This is a picture of the REAL Basta appetizer...

At home, I started with an iron skillet, a pound of Medjool Dates, jar of Prego spaghetti sauce, and a package of sausage.

Of course, I'm just guessing about the actual Basta recipe. I put the uncooked sausage into the dates, set them in the sauce, put them in a 350 degree oven for 40 minutes

When I took them out of the oven, I sprinkled feta cheese on top. To transport my Basta sausage stuffed dates, I put them in a different pan (with a lid).

I NAILED IT..!!  Next time, I will use spicy sausage.  They will be PERFECT.!!