Sausage Bean Soup

I just got my first subscription to Taste of Home magazine.  I lucked out and used a coupon code to get it for all of $3.99 for a whole year, SCORE!  I haven't had a magazine subscription since I was a teenager getting TEEN magazine, so I'm super excited.

I love trying new recipes but hate buying 50 different ingredients for one dinner.  It completely defeats the purpose of trying to eat at home and keep money in my wallet.  So I saw this recipe in their November issue

I thought it would be perfect to try to use up some of my stockpile ingredients and since it is getting a bit colder here, I try to make some kind of soup at least once a week now.  I didn't have all the ingredients, so I started improvising.  The recipe doesn't call for meat but I bought this sausage at our local grocery store for $1.00 a package and decided it would be tasty thrown in.

I also didn't have the lentils it said put in, what are lentils anyway?  So I grabbed the kidney beans out of the pantry and put them in instead.

Sausage Bean Soup

1lb smoked sausage (or any other meat you have on hand)

4C water

1 (6oz) tomato paste

3 sliced carrots (1can of carrots)

2 celery stalks chopped

1 med onion sliced

1 cup kidney beans (you can use whatever beans you have on hand or even canned ones)

couple shakes of garlic powder (or 1 clove minced)

1T brown sugar

1T vinegar

1T parsley

salt and pepper to taste

Make sure if you are using dry beans you have soaked and cooked them until soft (don't do what I did and throw them in thinking they will soften quickly, you will be wrong).  Put all your ingredients in a pot and let cook until the celery and carrots are tender, and your finished.  The smoked sausage I used is already cooked, it just needs heating through.  If you use any kind of raw meat cook or brown in before adding it to your soup.

This would be great in your crockpot too.  If using your crockpot you wouldn't need to cook your beans before hand, you could just soak them overnight and throw everything and cook all day.

I do so love soup on a cold winter night!