Lots of dishes with a little sausage

My boyfriend's family never bought the sage-heavy or sweet "breakfast sausages" when he was growing up. When his mother cooked sausage for breakfast, it was a link of Italian sausage, cut in half and butterflied open to provide lots of brown crispy surface.  He made this sausage and eggs for me and then taught me how to butterfly.

Since our favorite brand of sausage is sold in packages of 4 links (which total 1 to 1.2 lbs), whenever I cook a new package I end up with 8 butterflied pieces.  Sometimes when we find a manager's special, I cook 3 packages up, and toss big bags of butterflied, cooked sausage in the freezer.  Thaw it in the microwave, slice it up into half-rounds and it turns into a dozen different dishes.  OK, they all taste strongly of our favorite Italian sausage, but you can still mix it up.

Today we sausage, browned with a little olive oil.  Then I stirred in 2 chopped tomatoes that were a little too hard to be appealing raw, and sprinkled in a little salt and pepper.  When the tomatoes had softened and given up their juice, I cracked into two eggs, sprinkled an ounce of crumbled feta and the leaves from one sprig of fresh oregano over them, and covered the pan until the eggs were set on top.  We had this for lunch with toast.

Sometimes the chopped sausage goes into a big pot of sauce for pasta, or gets sauteed with zucchini and eggplant and then tossed with pasta. It seasons hash browns, or adds some chew and spice to a veggie frittata.

A butterflied section can thaw and brown in the skillet for sausage and eggs when we're camping, or go on the grill with oiled vegetables for dinner.  When we have a lot in the freezer, I might use 8 oz. to make a big pot of bean soup.

We eat a lot of sausage, but only a little bit at a time.

Sausage Mustgo Soup

Odds and ends go into a pot and are magically converted into soup. While the vegetables soften, the sausages lend their spice to the broth and some beans dissolve to give the soup body.

BEFORE

1 link hot Italian sausage (4~5 oz)

1 link mild Italian sausage (4-5 oz)

8 oz smoked kielbasa

1 medium onion (~2 cups), chopped

3-4 stalks celery, sliced 1/4" thick (~ 1 cup)

1 large (approximately 16 oz.) red skinned yam, peeled and diced into 1/2" chunks

1 quart chicken broth

3 cups cooked small white beans

black pepper, to taste

5 oz. baby spinach

Squeeze the Italian sausage out of the casing into a Dutch Oven over medium heat.  Stir occasionally, breaking the meat into small clumps.  

Slice the kielbasa 1/4 inch thick, and cut the pieces into half-moon shapes.  Chop the onions.  When the sausage is cooked through, stir in the kielbasa and onions, and continue to cook until everything is starting to brown.

Stir in sweet potato and celery.  Add chicken broth and beans.  Bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer.  Skim any scum that has risen to the surface, cover and cook until sweet potatoes are tender.  Taste the broth and add pepper to taste.

Gather the spinach into clumps, and roughly chop.  Stir the spinach into the soup and cook until wilted (less than 2 minutes.)