Roots & Sausage

Since it's mid-September and raining steadily, I decided to make one of my favorite cool-weather dishes for supper--Roots & Sausage.  It's a favorite for a few reasons--it's simple, it's easy, and it's delicious.  And I get to use some of my stash of homegrown potatoes, garlic, and onions! 

I cooked it all in my vintage slow cooker I scored for $1 at a Mennonite yard sale (yippee!), but you can use a modern slow cooker or even bake it in the oven. 

Here's the simple part:  the ingredients.  It's just polish sausage and "root vegetables", meaning the vegetable is actually the root of the plant--grown below ground, not above.  Here's what I used:  

11 red potatoes, 5 small onions, 4 garlic cloves, 4 carrots, and one package of polish sausage.

Feel free to toss in some sweet potatoes, too.  They taste great in this, but my cupboard was bare (of sweet potatoes, at least), and I was not about to run to the store to get some.  Call me crazy.

Here's the easy part:  Chop everything up into equal-sized pieces and toss them in your slow cooker.  Peel the potatoes if you want, I kind of half-way do that.  And I make sure the sausage goes in last so all the juices drip down on the roots and season them real good.  Mmm-mmn.

Then I kick it up a notch by sprinkling some brown sugar and seasoned salt over the top, just enough to lightly cover everything.  The sugar revs up the sweetness of the vegetables, and the salt balances out the flavor.  Plus, I'm in love with brown sugar.  And salt of any kind. 
I feel better just saying it.

Cook this for a couple of hours on high, gently stirring it a time or two.  When the carrots are tender, it's done.  Plate it up with a few tomato slices, drizzle it with some sauce from the bottom of the pot, and savor the flavor.  That's where the deliciousness comes in!


Note:  This recipe serves 4.  If baking this dish in the oven, just grease a roast pan, fill it up, and cook it til it's tender, maybe an hour.  Serving it with the tomatoes is mandatory.  You'll see.