The Third Degree

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I had mentally prepared turkey sausage, pasta & garlic alfredo sauce for dinner. I went to make it, and randomly changed my mind while cooking up the turkey sausage. I pulled the pasta out and noticed that I had a bag of Bear Creek Navy Bean Soup mix in the cupboard. I love Bear Creek’s mixes, and while they’re a bit higher in salt, I can solve that (add some potatoes).

9 cups of water (instead of 8) and the navy bean soup mix turned into a magical bean stew/soup (stup? stop?).

I let …
9 cups of water
navy bean soup mix
3 turkey sausage links
4 whole cloves of garlic
3 tablespoons of chopped garlic
2 cups of frozen peas
2 cups of frozen broccoli florets and
1 cup of chopped up baby carrots
… cook in the crockpot on high for 1 hour.

Then I decided randomly to add …
1 cup of water and
2 cups of shells pasta for
… another half hour in the crock pot on high.

I also added black pepper because I love the stuff.

I then couldn’t wait to eat it, so I ladled out two scoops and THOROUGHLY enjoyed it. The pasta was a little al dente, but I just added more water and left it to cook on low while I ate. Right now it’s still cooking and later I’ll ladle it into at least 8 tupperware containers. I’ll freeze 6 of them, and eat them for lunches and dinners as I need/want them!

Since I live alone, I find that when I cook in the crock pot (and especially with the Bear Creek soups), I end up with enough food for at least two weeks. I haven’t been cooking from scratch enough lately and so when I make things like this, they are normally random, have a little of everything in it (next time I might skip the pasta and add a ton more broccoli), and then people are jealous of me all week long at work while I nom on tasty homemade stuff!

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