Smoked Sausage & Beans

Yesterday, I received my October/November issue of Simple & Delicious. I made the ginormous mistake of reading it in bed on a semi-empty stomach. It ended with me eating a 100 calorie bag of popcorn and marking about half the pages of the mag.

In case you aren't familiar, S&D is similar to the Rachel Ray or Sandra Lee style of cooking. Those are my kinda girls. We most definitely can make meals from scratch, but usually it's just quicker to take help from the store.

On with the recipe.

The magazine calls it 'Zesty Sausage & Beans,' but considering I didn't follow the recipe exactly, I think I get to call it what I want. Therefore, I now introduce you to...wait for it...

Smoke Sausage & Beans (clever, I know)

1lb smoked sausage
1 can (15 oz)  black beans (rinsed and drained)
1 can (15 oz) northern white beans (rinsed and drained)
1 can (15 oz) tomato sauce
1 medium red bell pepper
6 slices of bacon (cooked  and crumbled)
3 tbsp. brown sugar
2 tbsp. vinegar
5 garlic cloves (pressed or finely chopped)
palm full of thyme
palm full (plus) crushed red pepper
salt and pepper

I also made some Minute brown rice to put under this concoction. Believe it or not, I'm not a huge fan of rice, but brown rice seems a little more appealing than white.

I don't usually set out all of my ingredients, but I happened to just get back from the store. Besides, I'm trying to get the feel for this camera. Taking blog worthy photos is tough.

I started by cutting the bacon into my pan and cooking it. I do this instead of crumbling after it's cooked. I really hate touching meat, no seriously. I could never touch meat again and be a happy girl, but the Hubs is the quintessential meat and potatoes kinda guy. So instead of making him become an herbivore, I suck it up and make the meat. Note the halved and sliced sausage in the background. Make sure ya do that.

Right after the bacon was finished, I wrapped it in paper towel and set it aside. Then, dropped the sausage in the grease. If Ima cook meat, Ima go all the way!

While the meat was browning, I chopped the veggies and opened the cans then dumped everything (including the sausage) in the slow cooker. Set to High.

After an hour and a half (of course you could go longer, I'd just keep the heat on low), I took the lid off for about a half hour to let it thicken up. When the rice finished (those last five minutes are agony) we topped it with the sausage and beans. De Lish!

You could definitely go Veggie with this stew(?), but be sure to add something in place of the meat. Maybe another can of beans and a can of diced tomatoes.

<3 dani

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