Cold weather warmer - sausage and bean casserole

It’s no secret that the weather this year has just been awful, what with constant rain leading to floods of apocalyptic nature and with storm Henry, Gertrude, Desmond and now Imogen on it’s way. This weekend gave us a rare break in the weather, with beautiful blue skies, no wind, low and bright sunshine, it might have been just 3 degrees but it was fantastic and it was just too good an opportunity to miss. We called the family, made a packed lunch and headed out enjoy the beautiful cheshire countryside and made our way to Quarry Bank Mill. The kids had a great time playing dressing up as victorian cotton mill workers and being shown how leeches would be used to fix just about any medical condition before they headed out to play in nature’s playground ending up with all three children covered in mud from head to toe. We headed home cold tired and very happy. When we got home there was only one thing that I could think to knock up that would take minutes to organize. Whilst my better half chucked my son in the bath and scrubbed the mud off him I put some sweet potatoes in the oven to roast and put the rest of this spicy sausage and bean casserole together. It barely touched the sides and after we retired to the living room with a hot chocolate, a warm blanket and a cheesy movie. Needless to say my son lasted all of five minutes before falling asleep content in his post dinner bliss.

This recipe will feed 4 

4 small sweet potatoes

1 small onion

2 cloves of garlic

10 mild piquante peppers

1 tin cannellini beans 

1 tin butter beans

1 tin borlotti bean

2 tin chopped tomatoes

2 tsp sundried tomato paste

½ tsp paprika

½ bunch of basil

8 rare breed pork sausages

Place the sweet potatoes in the oven and bake for about 1 hour 15 minutes at 170c. Whilst they are cooking dice and sweat off the onion and crushed garlic in a pan over a medium heat until soft, add in the beans, chopped tomato, tomato paste, paprika, and basil, simmer and season with salt, pepper and a little sugar. Add in the piquante pepper. Grill the sausages separately to give them some colour and and get rid of any fat out of them. Serve it all up with a knob of butter in the potato and some green garden salad on the side. Enjoy!!