Sausage Cassoulet

I'm going to share with you one of my healthy recipes as part of a healthy lifestyle change that I blogged about here.

I make this dish almost every week during the cold weather. It's very cheap, full of healthy vegetables and can be fairly low-fat if you use low-fat sausages. Everybody in my house loves it!

It's also easily adapted to suit your family size and/or diet. For instance - for a vegetarian option, use vegetarian sausages and a vegetable stock cube. Or for wheat free, swap the pasta and stock cube for your usual wheat free alternatives.

I have IBS and onions are a trigger for me, I discovered that grated celery makes a wonderful substitute, and in fact I prefer the taste; it makes any dinner taste extremely yummy! So if you decide to use onions, I still recommend that you grate some celery in anyway!

Garlic would make a wonderful addition too but I avoid them as they are in the onion family!

This usually takes just under an hour to cook as the pasta takes a while to cook in this way. The pasta soaks up all the delicious flavours so it makes this dish worth the time!

Ingredients for a family of four

6 sausages, chopped into little meatball size chunks

1 large carrot, peeled and grated

3-4 celery sticks, grated

2-3 sprigs of rosemary, chopped finely

1 400ml carton of passata or can of chopped tomatoes

1 400ml can of cannelini beans

handful of dried macaroni

large handful of flat leaf parsley, roughly chopped

1 fresh red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped or a small sprinkle of dried crushed chilli

1 knorr pork stock cube

handful of spinach, roughly chopped

salt and pepper

Method

1. In a large heavy bottomed pan, splosh a small lug of olive oil and heat gently. Add the celery, carrot, chilli and rosemary and fry gently for 10 minutes.

2. Add the chopped sausages, cook for 10 minutes until they are sealed. 

3. Add the passata/tomatoes and the stock cube. Stir in.

4. Add the macaroni, you can have as little or as much as you want, depends on how hungry you are! Then add boiling water - enough to cover everything and bearing in mind that the pasta will soak a lot up. Cook until the pasta is almost cooked (around 30 minutes, I like my pasta soggy!). You will need to keep stirring and checking to see if you need anymore water. In my pan the macaroni tends to stick to the bottom if I leave it too long!

5. Now add the cannelini beans and chopped spinach. Cook for another 10 minutes. Taste for seasoning and add as appropriate.

6. Serve and add a generous handful of chopped parsley (not shown here, I didn't have any and it tastes sooo much better with it!)

In the past I have sprinkled on some grated cheese but I didn't today and it really doesn't need it either!

It was delicious! If any of you cook this then do let me know how you get on!