White beans with sausage and spinach

Whoa! This morning was a slippery slide to run errands: the snow thawed yesterday but froze up again during the night. The outside steps and walkway were covered in a superthin sheet of ice. Perfect weather to run out and do what you gotta do, then come home and make a quick, comforting soup, which is just what I did.

I pulled a serving of spicy breakfast sausage out of the fridge, two handfuls of fresh spinach that was left over from earlier this week and half a carrot. The sausage came out of the freezer last week because I had planned to make biscuits and gravy this weekend but somehow never got around to it. Fortunately, it will be perfect for my quick lunch soup: I'm busy baking some raisin buns and don't want to spend too much time on preparing lunch.

Quick lunch soup

1 serving of breakfast sausage*
1/4 onion, peeled and diced
1/4 cup of carrot, peeled and diced
1 can of white beans, drained and rinsed
2 cups of fresh spinach
2 cups of warm water
1/4 of a bouillon cube

Brown the breakfast sausage in a Dutch oven and add the onion and the carrot. Saute until the onion is translucent, add the can of beans, the two cups of warm water and the 1/4 bouillon cube or stock. Stir, bring to a boil and simmer for ten minutes or until the carrot is soft and the beans are warm. Stir in the spinach, taste and adjust seasonings and simmer for five more minutes until the spinach is wilted.

And that's it. Easy as can be, and it's tasty, filling and affordable.

* You can use any kind of breakfast sausage for this: spicy, sweet...whatever you like. As for biscuits and gravy, I like a combination of sweet and spicy so I usually buy two 16 oz packages with breakfast sausage: one sweet, one spicy, and divide each one in three pieces. I place one of each in a ziploc, mark it and freeze them until I need them.