Hairy Bikers’ Great Sausage Casserole

Another horrible day weather wise. We did brave the rain and walked into town to go to the library and read the local papers, but it wasn’t a pleasant walk. To cheer ourselves up we went into Wetherspoons for coffee. Their ordinary filter coffee is £1.15 for a large mug, and before 2pm you can get as many refills as you like. We had 2 cups each, so £2.30 for 4 cups of coffee.

It was worth braving the weather, though, as I got an amazing deal for my two sons for Xmas. W H Smith just happened to have a Doctor Who book and a WWE (American Wrestling) book as part of their 2 for £10 offer. I had a Smith’s 20% off voucher that brought the cost down to £8 for the two, and I also had a £5 ‘Love your high street’ voucher that I earned for answering a doorstep survey some time ago. That reduced the cost right down to £3 for 2 books that retailed full price at around £15 each. I’m really pleased as, with the scarf I knitted for DD2, I finally feel I’m making a start on my Christmas preparations. This afternoon I’ve made lists of things still to buy for pressies and also what we’re having for Xmas breakfast and dinner, trying to incorporate items I already have in stock such as stuffing mixes, bread roll mix and vegetarian sausage mix. I’m hoping my sealed tin will cover the food items I have to buy plus maybe one of two people’s pressies.

Dinner tonight was hot, flavoursome and filling on such a dark, damp day. I made the Hairy Bikers’ Great Sausage Casserole but adapted it for the slow cooker.

You can find the recipe here –

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/great_sausage_casserole_73010

but I also have their book.

As usual I changed it to make use of what I had in. I used 8 sausages (not 12) from the freezer (Aldi’s £1.09 pork sausages that I got at 30% off) cut into bite-sized pieces. Since I didn’t have any bacon, I put in a bit extra smoked paprika for flavour and doubled the amount of beans (kidney beans instead of butter beans). I added a few frozen, sliced mushrooms; I used light brown sugar since I didn’t have dark, and soy sauce instead of Worcestershire sauce. The wine was cheap plonk that a friend brought back from France and I added a chicken stock cube but not the extra liquid as there was plenty from the wine and tinned tomatoes (25p in a 4 for £1 deal in Morrison’s last week).  So…a totally different recipe, really, but based on the Hairy Bikers’ version and served with slow cooker baked potatoes. 

Most slow cooker meals I just throw everything in but to make this in the slow cooker you do need to brown the sausages first. I save on cooking time by cutting them up with my kitchen scissors before frying. I didn’t add any extra oil, just cooked the pieces until lightly browned. I then fried the onions in the tiny bit of fat from the sausages (these ones don’t shed much fat during cooking). I added all the other ingredients to the pan and heated through before transferring to the slow cooker and leaving on low for 6 hours. If using bacon that should also be chopped into pieces and browned.

Approx costing for 5 adults was about £3 (without bacon) for the casserole plus 10p per person for the potatoes, so around 70p per meal.

Finally a big welcome to my latest followers SFT and Rachel. Happy to have you reading and thanks for your comments.