Hot Italian Sausage in a Garden Vegetable Tomato Sauce

It's going to be yucky weather all weekend.  Cold, rainy, and just...bleh.  Even if I could go outside, I doubt I would.

Only one thing can fix this gloom--Crock Pot to the rescue!!

I love crock pot cooking.  Meat, vegetables, some sort of liquid, and BAM!  Food for days.

Jewel-Osco had Hot Italian Sausage on sale Buy One Get One Free for $6.89 each pack of five.  I had them in the freezer just waiting for a period of gloomy days where I could get the crock pot out and make the house smell yummy all day.  I took a package out of the freezer last night and let it thaw overnight in the fridge.

The timing was also right to make Garden Vegetable Tomato Sauce.  I say this because I haven't been to the grocery store in a while, and there are bits of vegetables in my fridge that aren't going to last much longer and aren't in a large enough quantity to make a dish out of them.  Soooo....Garden Vegetable Tomato Sauce it is!

This is where crock pots are the best--throw everything in a pot, flavor it, and let it cook all day.

I chopped up all my veggies, which included zucchini, garlic, half an onion, the rest of the bell peppers that I've had for weeks, 2nd half of the jalapeno pepper I used last week, the remaining mushrooms that were just starting to turn, a carrot and some celery.  Sadly, I didn't have any fresh tomatoes left, as they don't last too long nor did I have any stewed or diced canned tomatoes.  Meh.  Whatever.  No one cares about the details that go in the crock pot as long as it all comes out tasting good.

So...chop it all up, throw it in the crock pot along with a bunch of dried herbs like basil, oregano, maybe some cumin, Bay Leaf, whatever you have.  Salt and pepper to your taste.  Put the sausage in and let it sink to the bottom.  Cook on low for...most of the day or high for 3 hours or so and there you go!

I ate two sausages for dinner with a lot of sauce and some grated Parmesan cheese.  You can serve this with pasta or saute up a big plate of vegetables on the side.

I also have one sausage and sauce for lunch tomorrow, and the remaining two for dinner the next night.  I'm really not a person who likes leftovers and there is a LOT of sauce leftover.  So I divided the rest of it into four, 8 oz. containers and into the freezer it goes to be used at another time over chicken, grilled vegetables or pasta--whatever I'm in the mood for!

That's it.  For an investment of around $8, I have at least 3 meals and homemade sauce for four more meals.

And my house smells sooooooo gooooood!

Enjoy!