Ground Hog Stew (Happy Groundhog's Day!)

Ground Hog Stew

2 lb. Italian Sausage links (sweet or hot, as you like it - or bulk sausage would also work ) this is your "ground hog"
1 large eggplant
2 medium zucchinis
3 baseball size onions
2 sweet peppers (I used orange cuz they were on sale)
2 regular size jars of spaghetti sauce

Get Italian sausage links and put them in the crock pot for 4 hours on high, with water to cover.
When the sausage is done, roast coarsely chopped eggplant, zucchini, sweet peppers in olive oil in a 350 oven till softening but not mushy.

Coarsely chop three baseball sized onions and brown them in the skillet, with a little bit of the water from the sausage. Add the chopped up fully cooked Italian sausage to get a little color on it. Discard the rest of the sausage cooking water... or for a soupier style dish, leave it in there!

Return sausage and onions to the crock pot and add a jar of tomato basil spaghetti sauce. When veggies are roasted, add them to the pan you browned the onion in and add a jar of sauce, to that, too. You can simmer this a little to make it ready right away or put it like this in the crock on low for about 30 min. to 1 hour depending on how crisp/soft you want the veggies.

Mix the two parts together, serve either as a stew or you could make bowtie pasta to have with this...

YUMMY!

This message was edited Feb 3, 2009 6:59 PM