Rainy Rainy Sunday

It’s a drizzly dark and cool day. The kind of day where you want to stay in bed and watch movies. So after a combination of painting/redoing my bathroom and running around all weekend, that’s just what I had planned for today. Around 6:00pm I started to notice myself getting hungry and with the weather as it was, I decided to make a pot of soup. So I pealed myself off the couch and away from a Keeping Up With the Kardashians marathon, oh the sacrifices I make, and went to the kitchen to start cooking.

I had several veggies at the farmers’ market that I wanted to throw in it, but I was specifically excited to cook the fresh cranberry beans I picked up. These beans are a beautiful pinky color with fuschia speckle. Since they were fresh, this soup wasn’t going to take all day…Thank Goodness!

I kind of made a mishmash of the veggies in the fridge and some sausage to make a super healthy and really yummy soup.

Here’s the breakdown:

Al Fresco Spicy Jalapeno Chicken Sausage

I want to showcase this ingredient too because its pretty healthy as far as sausage goes and adds a ton of flavor and a bit of a kick to the broth of the soup. The nutrition information per link is as follows:

130 calories

7g fat

            2g sat fat

            0 trans fat

65mg cholesterol

450mg sodium

2g carbohydrates

1g sugar

15g protein

Ingredients

4 chicken sausage links, casings removed and crumbled

1lb or so fresh cranberry beans, shelled

10 okras, cut into ½” pieces

1 medium onion, diced

4 cloves garlic, minced

3 carrots, diced

2 ribs celery + leafy part, diced

3 cups stock

4 cups water

olive oil

2 bay leaves

cilantro

s&p

Sauté the onion, carrot, celery and okra in about 2 Tbsp. olive oil in a dutch oven. If you notice the veggies sticking too badly, add more oil. Cook until the okra is almost soft. Then add the sausage and garlic to the pot stirring until the sausage browns up a bit. Then add the stock (I used beef because that’s what I had, but use whatever you like), water, cranberry beans and 2 bay leaves. Stir well and cook over medium heat for 40 minutes or until the beans are cooked through. Cover the pot for about ½ the time so that it thickens a bit. Stir in salt and pepper to taste and a handful of fresh cilantro. I served it warm with a whole wheat baguette that I grilled.

It was perfect for today to warm me up and keep me in my sleepy relaxed state. Now back to the couch for some Entourage! Yawwwn