In the past few months my dinner routine has changed big time.
For the past year John and I have been living on opposite schedules. He worked nights and weekends so I packed him food for work and ate salads and simple meals by myself in the evening.
Now that we have evenings together, I have the bonus, and challenge, of cooking for two.
John feels a meal isn’t a meal if there isn’t meat in it. He likes good quality meat and dinners with spice and flavour.
Being a bit of a veg head, I’m taking the challenge in stride and filling the freezer with quality, local, organic meats from my favourite butcher so that we always have some on hand.
Since I’m at work most days I’ve been taking advantage of using leftovers and my crockpot (the best addition to my kitchen in a long time.)
I usually plan the next night’s dinner the evening before, and prep as much as I can that night, so that by the time we get home from work dinner is effortless.
The other night I was trying to think of a budget friendly dinner I could make with what I had on hand. I had two bison sausages in the freezer, a tupperware of leftover brown rice, and salsa in the fridge.
I browsed through recipes online using the words rice and crockpot and came across Spanish rice! It sounded easy, spicy and delicious so that’s what I went with!
I defrosted the sausages over night, and in the morning through them into the crockpot with diced tomatoes, salsa, broccoli, peas, broth and some spices.
When I came home from work I added the brown rice and let it warm up for an extra ten minutes or so. I threw together a big green salad, put out some parmesan, poured us some red wine and served it up!
It was total comfort food. Warm, spicy, rich and inviting. We happily dug in, and the leftovers the next day were even better!
If you want to make this meal vegetarian or vegan, simply use some veggie sausages and omit the parmesan!
- 2 cups of salsa
- 1 can of diced tomatoes
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 2 tsp chili powder
- 2 tsp cumin
- 2 sausages (can use veggie sauces to make this vegan)
- 1 cup vegetables (I used small pieces of broccoli and peas)
- ¼ cup vegetable broth
- 3 cups of brown rice
- Salt to taste
- Hot sauce optional
- Mix together everything but the rice in the slow cooker and let the sausages slow cook for 6-10 hours
- Near the end, add brown rice and mix in, let it heat up
- Serve with parmesan and a big salad
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
oh yum! love all the spices in the dish.
have you had paella? I think I spelled that right
Lori had it a lot when in Spain and loved it! love simple one dish meals sometimes
Yes I LOVE paella! It’s really popular in the South of France where my parents live. They sell it at the market in GIANT pots!!
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