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.

Scrambled Eggs with Hash Browns, Sausage, Peppers and Onion

Sitting on the counter, defrosting, is my first UFO. Actually, there are three UFOs, but they all seem to contain the same type of food. In my "freezing fervor" I often forgot to mark the bags thinking "Ohh, I'll KNOW that this is beef stew/goulash/spaghetti sauce/etc etc." Let's face it, once frozen, they all look alike, one a bit lumpier than the other perhaps, and there is no way of telling which is which. By the way, I freeze most of my leftovers in ziploc bags so I can flatten them. They stack well and take up a lot less space than containers do!

At first glance it looked like these bags contained something unsuitable for human consumption and would look more in place in eh....dare I say it, a sick baby's diaper. But even in my most frugal moments, I cannot imagine having frozen something like that. I'll just have to wait till these bags thaw out! Ah...patience....it's a scarce thing to come by in this house.

In the meantime, I've located some other, more easily recognizable food items. A 3/4 full bag of frozen hash browns, a bag of pepper stir fry, 1/2 pound of breakfast sausage and 1/2 bag of grated Cheddar cheese. There's some eggs left in the fridge, so let's use those too. This will be great for an easy breakfast fix.

Scrambled Eggs with Hash Browns, Sausage, Onions, Peppers (cheese optional)

2 cups of pepper stir fry mix (you can replace this with fresh peppers and onions)

5 eggs

1 cup of grated cheese (optional)

1/2 pound of breakfast sausage

Brown the breakfast sausage in a skillet or stirfry pan, and pour off the fat. Add the pepper stir fry mix ( or fresh sliced onions and peppers), until the onions are soft, and add the hashbrowns. In the meantime, beat the eggs in a bowl (you can add a little milk for more fluff). When the potatoes are cooked thoroughly, add the eggs to the mixture in the pan and scramble until the eggs are done. Pepper and salt to taste. Sprinkle cheese over this mixture if you wish, I'm more of a cheese girl but some people love this dish with hot salsa. Also excellent on some whole wheat toast or one on of those sliced bagels from your freezer.

You can freeze the leftovers in ziploc bags, making single portions. Flatten them and refrigerate before freezing. They microwave very well and make it an easy fix for a quick breakfast or improvised lunch. Make sure you mark your bags with the date, the contents and instructions on how to re-heat the food. You may want to eat this breakfast food within six months.

Well, the bags on the counter have defrosted sufficiently and I know now what they are. More on that tomorrow!