Home? School? Week 3 + Spicy Sausage Skillet Recipe

Skip to the Recipe: Spicy Sausage Skillet

A failure to plan is a plan to fail.

I never wrote anything down, and so we did no homeschool activities last week.

Commitment to New Year’s Resolutions starts to wane after 21 days, according to some popular wisdom in this Forbes article. That’s when we get tired of early morning workouts, dieting and associated New Year’s nonsense. That timeframe is just 14 days for homeschooling during a global pandemic.

At least for me.

Plus, last week was rough.

I didn’t drink enough water, so I had a mild headache every day. When I realized this, I failed to fix the problem by drinking more water.

I think I wore the same pair of sweatpants every day. Took ’em off, showered (I promise), put ’em back on. It’s not like I went anywhere or did anything…

My son stole nearly every food I tried to eat for breakfast. Though, in fairness, I was eating toaster pastries and chocolate chip Eggos… which are his food.

Whatever.

Instead of learning, we did a lot of snuggling, which he now requests by saying: “Pih-yo (pillow). Yay down (lay down). Puppy. Ginkie (binkie).” When we’re all settled in to snuggle and watch Hilda on Netflix — which I can quote (and so can he) — he pulls a blanket over us and presses his puppy to his face.

Apparently, we did this exactly enough times last week for him to think it’s now part of our daily routine.

I ain’t mad about it.

We’ll try to learn something next week. Our packet from USD 259 arrived Friday, and we still have a packet from the week of Spring Break we need to dig into.

Which I just found because…

…I finally cleaned the mail and miscellaneous paperwork off the microwave.

Where we also found the tags to our vehicles and what is likely the final notice on filling out the Census.

Which we did. Don’t @ me.

Because I don’t have any awesome activities to share with you — I know you’re bummed — here’s a recipe for a household dinner (and then breakfast and then lunch) staple. It’s a halfway homemade miscellaneous pantry masterpiece.

Spicy Sausage Skillet Recipe

6-8 servings

Ingredients

• Fully cooked Andouille sausage, sliced into 1/4-inch rounds
• 1 medium white onion, diced
• 1 green or red pepper, diced
• 1 jalapeno, diced fine
• 1 Tbs. canola oil
• 1 can Rotel, regular or spicy
• 1 can dark red kidney beans, drained
• 1/2-1 cup vegetable or chicken broth
• 1/4 cup frozen corn
• Homemade Cajun seasoning or 1 Tbs. Alton Brown’s Taco Potion #19

Directions

Mix the Cajun seasoning: 2 tsp. salt, 1/2 tsp. fresh ground black pepper, 1 tsp. dry thyme, 1 tsp. dry oregano, 2 tsp. smoked hot paprika, 1 tsp. onion powder, 1 tsp. garlic powder and 1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper.

Heat a large skillet over high heat. Once hot, sauté sausage rounds until they plump and brown on both sides. (If you use a nonstick or seasoned cast iron skillet, you shouldn’t need oil for this part. The sausage has its own fat. )

Remove the sausage from the skillet, leave excess fat and add 1 Tbs. canola oil to the pan. Toss in diced onions and peppers. Season with salt and pepper. Sauté until glossy and softened. Add half the seasoning mixture, 1/2 cup of vegetable broth, Rotel and dark red kidney beans and stir. Reduce heat to medium low and let simmer for 10-15 minutes, or until the liquid has reduced.

Then, add in the frozen corn, remaining seasoning and other 1/2 cup of vegetable broth — but just if your skillet is looking a little dry.

Once the corn is cooked, it’s done! It’s delicious! It’ll keep in the fridge for an unhealthy amount of time.

How to Serve

The reason this dish is a masterpiece is because you can serve it four hundred different ways. Here are just a few:

• Straight out of the pan. Seriously.
• Over white or brown rice or quinoa.
• Over mashed potatoes. Don’t believe me? TRY IT. IT’S AMAZING.
• Over hash browns, and then add an egg because #breakfast.
• My favorite? Straight from the pan to the plate with a fried egg (or two) and sliced avocado. Holla, #brunch.

If 6-8 servings is too much for your household, halve the whole thing and get about four half to 3/4 cups of awesome. (You will be missing out on the second day of eating it for lunch, though, and that’s a good day.)

Another reason this is the greatest dish of all time? Substitutions. Don’t have dark red kidney beans? Black beans work just as well. Too spicy? Get rid of the hot peppers. Not spicy enough? Use hot Rotel or add red chile flakes to the spice mix. Vegetarian? Try it with tofu and let me know how it is.

It’s the perfect dish for weeks when you wear the same sweat pants every day, forget to drink water and subsist off whatever your toddler will let you eat.

Because he won’t eat this.

Enjoy!