Bastardized Bean Soup in the Crockpot

I gotta say - when I first saw this recipe on the Cooking Light website - it looked so damn cosmopolitan.  You know that recipe - the kind with the sexy title that just begs for you to invite over company so they can revel in your culinary prowess, but also a wee bit intimidating ... a recipe with such a great title MUST be complicated to pull off, right?  Right?

Um ... yeah.  After putting off and putting off this recipe because I was a bit daunted by the title (apparently I hadn't read the actual TEXT of what had seduced me ...), I realized something.  This was basically a version of my mom's bad-ass bean soup, but with stuff she wouldn't even IMAGINE crossing her palate (i.e. - smoked turkey sausage ... the woman has an unnatural hatred for turkey ... love you ma!)


So after reading the recipe and realizing that the only thing that was daunting me was the process of browning the sausage (unnecessary step, by the way) and the garlic and shallots, I made the next ultimate mistake of putting this soup in overnight in my crockpot.  And sometime after reassuring myself that the house wouldn't spontaneously combust in the middle of the night (I have that irrational fear when I leave the crockpot on for extended periods of time, which truly negates the use of a slow cooker), my sleep was plagued by dreams of baking and I was literally tormented by the smells of awesome bean soup goodness that leeched into my subconscious.


I woke myself up when I heard myself talking and when I accidentally hit my husband in the head because I was gesturing some point in my dream.  So despite the unintentional injuries and the fact that I basically had to quarantine myself from society after consuming bean soup for breakfast, lunch AND dinner in the span of one day (I never said my love for bean soup was reasonable), I hereby present my version of Cooking Light's "Tiny French Beans with Smoked Sausage" otherwise known to my husband as "that damn soup that my wife made in the middle of the night and assaulted me over at 2 a.m."

I am a bowl of pooty goodness

Bastardized Crockpot Bean Soup with Smoked Sausage
adapted from Cooking Light

Ingredients

* 1 lb. smoked turkey sausage, cut into 1 1/2-inch pieces
* 1 T olive oil
* 1/3 cup minced shallots
* 3 garlic cloves, minced
* 2 C dried flageolets or other dried white beans, (about 1 pound - I used lima beans, apparently Hyvee doesn't carry flageolets? What the hell are flageolets?)
* 2 C water
* 1/4 C minced fresh or 1 tablespoon dried thyme (**I used rosemary ... it's what was in my kitchen)
* 1 teaspoon celery seeds (**don't have it - omitted)
* 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
* 2 (14 1/2-ounce) cans fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth

Preparation

Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add sausage; sauté 5 minutes or until browned. Remove from pan, and place in an electric slow cooker. Heat the oil in pan over medium heat. Add shallots and garlic; cook 1 minute, stirring constantly.

Sort and wash beans. Add beans, shallot mixture, water, and the remaining ingredients to slow cooker. Cover and cook on high 8 hours or until beans are tender.

WARNING ... cooking times are approximate.  After accidentally nailing hubby in the head and checking the soup at 2 a.m. (I had been in bed since 10 - four hours), the liquid had cooked down substantially and I ended up using an entire box (32 oz.) of chicken broth.

Would I make this again?  Most definitely - I'd also add a Shelley twist and chuck a few chopped carrots into the mix.  But if I make it again, I will not consume bean soup for an entire day's worth of meals and I'll make it on weekend when I won't obsessively dream over my culinary concoctions.