20 minute Christmas Cards

I am not very good at sending Christmas Cards. I did it once, and honestly, I think they are packed away in a box somewhere, never really having been sent.

So tonight, in 20 minutes and thanks to Paperless Post, my family's Christmas cards have been sent, quickly and best of all, environmentally friendly! I promise that the same amount of love went into them...more really, since you will actually receive them!

I love the internet.

BrrrrMmmm

So we had our first "real" snowstorm of the season last night. Not a lot of snow and more wind than I ever needed to experience. Sorry for the lousy picture, but I didn't think of it until this evening. I was more interested in making something warm and yummy for dinner!
I thought I would share my recipe for Squasage Soup. I know, silly name, but that's how we roll around here.

Squasage Soup
1 to 2 pkg Mild Italian Sausage (Depends on how spicy and meaty you feel)
1 Large yellow onion, chopped
1 28 oz. can chopped tomatoes
1 2-3 lb. butternut squash, peeled and chopped into 3/4 inch chunks
1 tsp dry thyme or 1 Tbl fresh thyme
2 15 oz cans cannellini beans
1 6 oz package prewashed baby spinach
olive oil
salt
pepper

I use a cast iron dutch oven for this soup, but any heavy bottomed pot works fine.

1. Crumble and brown sausage over medium high heat. Remove with a slotted spoon onto a plate and set aside. Drain fat and discard fat.
2. Heat 2 TBL olive oil in same dutch oven on medium heat and add onion. Cook until transluscent. Add tomatoes with juice, squash, browned sausage, 5 cups of water, 1/2 tsp pepper, 1 1/2 tsp kosher salt, and thyme. Bring to a boil, then set heat to low and simmer for 15-20 minutes until squash is tender.
3. Increase heat to medium. Add beans and spinach and cook until bean are heated through and spinach is wilted.

You can make this soup without the sausage...but what would be the point?

Seriously, it would make a really good vegetarian soup, and would be really good with chicken as well. I have tried chicken stock instead of water, and honestly, I like it with water. If you use chicken, then I would definitely use chicken stock, since the chicken would not give off as much flavor as the sausage does. Its a pretty basic recipe, so switching any of the ingredients with something similar would be fine, as long as your quantities stay the same. I would do beef stew meat, black beans, beef stock, yukon gold potatoes, and a jalapeno for one variation. Chicken, garbanzo beans, carrots and curry powder would be pretty tasty as well.

I hope you all are warm tonight...Oh, here is the end result, after we dug into it!