Throwing everything but the kitchen sink at your dinner !

I love earthy herbs !

Sage.

You come in from work you have no real idea on what you want for your dinner so you go hunting around your various food store cupboards for something to warm you, comfort you and feed you !
Tonight's culinary delight (????) was not too difficult as I had recently been shopping so had a good supply of stock to choose from. Unlike some occasional days when I only have a tin of tomatoes and some pasta floating around and a few dried herbs. Its not as bad as you think because having some dried herbs means I can add a little life to the humble tin of tomatoes. Sprinkle them into the tomatoes and put the lot into a pan and just reduce them until they are thick and developed an intense tomato flavour and then run them through your pasta its pretty good actually but not something a man of 43 should be having to do. Yes a spotty 18 year old student away from home waiting for his parents to get him a food red cross parcel delivered to him care of the ASDA or Tescos home delivery service but not me !
Now I had brought some of those mini sausages from Sainsburys yesterday for the old pigs in blankets that sit next to your Turkey on Christmas day but had not yet frozen them so unfortunately I am going to have to go to Sainsbury now and get some more !
So a little Sausage stew seemed a good idea. Warming, comforting and satisfying ! Tick..tick...and tick !

Root veg.

You know I like roasted Veg so I diced and roasted 2 each of Sweet potatoes, Parsnips, and Carrots.  Noah would have been proud ! Add to the roasting tin 1 red onion and 1 garlic clove, a good splash of Olive Oil then mix the lot together and then season. Place into a hot oven for about 10-15 minutes.
Meanwhile I thought a few Maris Pipers diced and roasted like you would a roast potato would add a nice crunch for a change but creamy mash is great too. So they were placed into the oven as well.
Now I need a bit of a sauce to mix everything together so splash a tablespoon of olive oil in a heavy bottomed pan, add 1 finely diced onion, half a stick of finely diced celery and 1 clove of garlic. Saute until translucent then add a tablespoon of tomato pure and stir for a couple of minutes to cook out the starch. Now at this point a lovely wine glass of Bordeaux or Chateaux Langoa-Barton 2007 into the base of this sauce and the base of my stomach would have been great. However I only had cans of Budweiser beer in the house so that went into the base of the sauce and my beer mug instead ! ha ha !
Reduce the beer by half, then add a Knox Rich Beef stock jelly pot and stir. You should just be left with a thick syrup. Add about a litre of hot water, stir and let it infuse.
After about 15-20 minutes on a gentle heat bring it to the boil. Now I have some pretty good Veal gravy powder which I added for more flavour and also to thicken the sauce. You can buy any powder gravies from the supermarket to act as a thickening agent. Even Ahhh Bisto !
So they you have your sauce for the stew.
Grill, fry or put your mini sausages into the oven. They should not take too long to cook 6-10 minutes.
When cooked place onto some kitchen roll to soak up any oil from the sausages and then place them into your pan of sauce. I then opened a tin of butter beans, drained them then placed them into the sauce. The roasted veg came out of the oven next, I drained as much oil as could while taking them from the tray and then lobbed them into the sauce as well.
Then gently fold the mixture together. Do not be too rough or it could break the veg up and you will be left with a pan of soup ! ha ha.
To finish I sliced some thin strips of fresh sage and added that to the stew.
The mini roast potatoes were ready and I placed them in the bottom of my serving bowl then a very generous serving of the sausage stew was placed majestically on top.
It was rich, warming and left me slightly stuffed.
Unfortunately my beer had gone flat by the time I got to drink it so I had to open another one ! ha ha ! I wonder if anyone from Budweiser reads this and sends me a six pack as a thank you for mentioning their beer in this recipe ? "So that's Budweiser your smooth silky beer for all your cooking needs..! " that should do it ! Ha Ha !

Serves about 4 or one hungry bloke with a large spoon ! ha ha !