Its a cold winters afternoon and your feeling like some yummy yummy warming comforting food thats not that naughty?  Well do i have the sausage stew for you! I based the recipe on good ol Jamie Olives recipe for Southern Sausage Stew but of course made a few changes

Sausage Stew

Stuff you’ll need

• 8 fat sausages (we used gourmet wagu beef ones from the markets – nomnomnom)
• 2 onions
• 1/2 celery
• 2-3 carrots
• 1 cup peas (i used frozen)
• 4 cloves of garlic unpeeled
• 1 fresh chili
• Fresh thyme (guess you could use dried if you wanted too)
• Dried basil & oregano (guess you could use fresh if you wanted too)
• 1 tsp Paprika
• 1 tsp Cayenne Pepper
• 2-3 tbls flour
• 1 tbls cider vinegar
• 750ml chicken stock
• 400grm tin tomatoes

What i did

Brown the sausages then remove from pan.  Dice onions, chili, celery, carrots into equal portions and sautee for 10 minutes until mostly soft, add unpeeled garlic, fresh thyme, cayenne pepper, paprkia and flour, stir until combined.  Add vinegar & stir until thick and gluggy, then add the stock and tomatoes and bring to the bubble.

Place the browned sausages and sauce into a slow cooker and place on high, add the herbs and stir until combined.  I did not out a cover on the slow cooker and let it sit on high for about four hours checking and stirring it regularly.  Along the way i added more herbs and more paprika and pepper so the taste was to my liking, with about half an hour before it was time to eat i added some defrosted peas.

I had some homemade cottage cheese bread from that morning, which i placed under the grill with some butter and served along side.

Now after four hours in the cooker the sausages were oh so moist and the sauce had thickened to perfection! It was by far the best stew i have made in a LONG LONG time… And while the boys didnt say how awesome it was, i thought it was the bomb and even went back for seconds!