Tuscan-Style White Bean Stew

It's a real recipe! A real, paper, from-the-stash recipe! I can't tell you how happy I am about that. I also can't tell you how happy I am with this stew, but I'll try. Proof of Paper!



Mostly, I was looking for something filling, easy, and from the pile. This hit all three areas. It tastes good despite- and I'd like to emphasize DESPITE- the fact that 1) I always buy the wrong ingredients and 2) it has italian sausage in it. I'm not much of a sausage person myself. Give me a good summer sausage log and I'll go to town, but nothing else really interests me. Add to the fact that "Sausage" makes anything sound good and my insistance that I might like it this time amounts to more disappointment than I can usually handle. But lo! The seasonings in it actually make this taste better. Promise.

I had to make some substitutions here, as always. I couldn't find sweet summer sausage as the recipe calls for, so I added mild Italian instead. Also, we don't sell cannellini down here. It's against the rules to sell stuff that foreigners might eat. So I dumped in two cans of Great Northerns instead. Aside from that, I didn't have to make any additions for taste, which greatly surprises me. I even ate some of the sausage itself. When it wasn't too big.

Does anyone else think sage smells like a sweaty Christmas tree?

Tuscan-Style White Bean Stew
Source: Magazine unknown

Prep time: 20 minutes
Cook time: 20 minutes

1 lb sweet Italian sausage
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 med onion, chopped
2 19oz cans cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
roughly 2 cups chicken broth or 1 14-1/2oz can
1 T chopped sage
1/4 tsp ground black pepper

1. Cut sausage into bite sized pieces and brown on both sides in a pan. Discard all but 1 T of the drippings. Set sausage aside. Cook onion and garlic in drippings until soft. Add beans and broth- simmer covered for 10 mins. Stir in sage, pepper, and sausage.

Makes about 5 cups.