Day 288.

Thursday, October 15, 2009.

Dinner was made by 1:00.

I am grateful for crockpots.

Crockpots are genius. And I want to thank the Crockpot Lady, Stephanie O'Dea for making a really cool blog that got me super-inspired to break out my crock pot and cook some amazing meals. She did a blog in 2008 where she used her crockpot EVERY day for the whole year. Sometimes it was delicious, sometimes it tanked, but she was always honest about the verdict, and shared a side of humor with every dish. I recommend you check it out.

So, today I did not make one of her recipes. I found a yummy spicy sausage soup online that I modified to what I had and it was STELLAR. Here is that recipe. I used precooked brown rice (3c.) instead of instant, left out the pepper, used mild breakfast sausage instead of spicy, upped the chili powder, used double the tomatoes (and no green chiles in them), and cooked it on HIGH for 4 hours, then low 1 hour. So, it was different from this.

BUT, it still turned out great! DELICIOUS! I loved it, it was hearty, and pretty healthy (minus all the red meat of course). That's why I love crockpots - they are really forgiving. You don't have to be exact - and things are still delicious, most of the time.