Sausage Bake

The weather turned miserable yesterday – nothing like what has been happening in other parts of the world – but I had been enjoying the recent days of mellow spring weather. Nevertheless, things took a bit of a nose dive today. A significant drop in temperature, torrential rain, driving winds, powerlines and trees down, roofs off, and that sort of inexplicable weather so I decided I needed to do something quick, cheap and warming for dinner!

All I had in the fridge was the remains of some semi-dried tomatoes, an unopened container of green olives, a few beef sausages, a capsicum and some tiny yellow and red toms. I just needed something to support them all.

I could have used sliced bread or bread rolls but I had to go to the shops later for something else, so I thought I might have a look. No focaccia or sour dough but I found some smallish Turkish style breads.

Anyway, simple as could be.

I tore up the bread into bite-sized chunks and tossed them into a casserole dish. Rinsed and chucked in the baby toms – they were too small to cut. Usually I rinse tinned beans but this time I just chucked everything, beans and the juice they were in, onto the bread.

Next thinly sliced garlic, I used three large cloves, but you can use as much as you like, and scattered them around the dish. Salt and pepper sprinkled over the lot.I roughly cut each of the meaty beef sausage into chunks and lightly pressed them into the bread, bean and tomato mix.

A good sprinkle of olive oil and red wine vinegar. I was going to add a chopped yellow pepper but ran out of room.

Finally, as an afterthought, I used the last of the semi-dried tomatoes that had been lurking in the back of the fridge since God knows when, along with some large green olives. I feel olives always raise the quality of any meal rather like the way ice cubes can uplift any drink.

Anyway, gave everything a final stir and bunged it in the pre-warmed oven on the middle shelf at 180 degrees (or therabouts) for at least 35 – 45 minutes, depending on how crispy you like the top!

Delicious, crunchy bits of bread with soggy underbite, succulent sausage and squirts of flavour from the baby toms. Along with the earthy tones from the olives and the cannelloni beans. A glass of red would have gone well with it!

And there’s more than enough for leftovers!