Jul 24, 2010

sausage-style beans with grilled green beans

Continental

I have been craving mashed potatoes topped with Italian Sausage drenched with a flavorful sauce. Since I didn't want to use seitan or soy again, although Tofurkey makes a great Italian Sausage, I needed to get the flavor of Italian sausage in some other way. I chose beans since we haven't had our weekly quota of legumes. I seasoned the beans with ground fennel seeds, crushed chili, Hungarian paprika and garlic. I added a chopped tomato to help get some sauciness into the beans and splashed on some balsamic vinegar for a tang.

I served it over mashed potatoes and topped it with grilled green beans cooked crisp-tender. I infused some olive oil with garlic, chili flakes and fennel seeds, and used the oil for the green beans and I stirred the strained solids into my mashed potatoes.

So, I achieved what I set out to do - infuse the flavor of Italian sausage into my beans, achieved wonderful texture and grilled flavor with the green beans and got my creamy mashed potatoes to tie everything together.

Nice.

Cost Breakdown:
3# potatoes: $3.50
almond milk, olive oil, garlic, spices: $2
beans: $2
tomato, green beans, onion: $3
Total to feed a family of 5:
$10.50
  



2 comments:

  1. I love the idea of sausage flavored beans. I too want to have that taste but don't want to over do the wheat gluten or soy so attaching the flavor to beans is brilliant. What type of beans did you use?

    ReplyDelete
  2. To get the sausage flavor sautee your diced onion with, 1 t fennel seeds, ground, 1/2 t chili flakes, 3 cloves garlic minced. I also added 2 t paprika and 1 tomato, chopped along wiht 1/2 c water to get a sauce. If you are not after a sauce, skip the water.

    Let me know your variation when/if you make it.

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