Bean and Sausage Hot Pot

Six fat sausages sizzling in the pan.  Three went pop and three went bang.  Miss Abigail would've found it hilarious if she'd not been banished from the kitchen due to things cooking on the stove.

I've never fried sausages before, having been bought up to religioulsy grill them to try to reduce a little of the fat.  Now I know why people prick sausages.  An exploded, semi-cooked sausage looks less than appetising and for someone who is practically veggie these days (if I could only give up chorizo and dairy), it turned my stomach and I very nearly binned the sausages and cooked fish fingers and chips (the husband will be most disappointed by that admission if he's bothering to read this blog).

The recipe is one that's been lurking in my BBC Good Food online binder for sometime as I discovered it on the only sunny day we had this year and had been saving it for the depths of winter.  It's very similar to the recipe for Chorizo and Butterbean stew that I pilfered from the lovely @BridestockBride's blog a few weeks back but a bit more family friendly.

Sepia toning makes the broccoli look overcooked!

Family friendly if your family like food that is.  The child is not eating anything other than grapes and yogurt at the moment.  No cheese, no pasta, no fish fingers, no bread, no peas (previously her five favourite staples).  And yet she loved the tomato sauce that this came in when I fed it to her straight from the pan.  She was long in bed by the time the meal was cooked so I've saved her some for tomorrow but no doubt she'll turn her little button nose up at it.

The husband also turned his far larger nose up at it.  But with the mood I'm in, he knew better than to complain because there was nothing else on offer.  He picked out the butter beans 'they're yuck' even though they are just like overgrown baked beans and grudgingly ate the rest without complaining that I'd used Cumberland sausages (for the coarse texture) rather than our usual choice by the Black Farmer.  Served with a dollop of mash or some crusty bread, this will warm the cockles of your heart in the bleak midwinter.

If you like food with taste and texture, then this dish is definitely for you.  If you like piles of bland, cardboardy mush with a hint of plastic garlic butter, try Sainsburys Chicken Kievs which is a favourite of the husbands.