Rice & Beans with Sausage

Rice & Beans with Sausage is one of Jeff's most favorite meals. I, however, pretty much hate rice and sausage and sometimes I can handle beans/sometimes I can't. I used to have to take nexium, gees, but I have been good without it for about 1 year! So why would I eat things I don't like for dinner?

Well, I found this sausage on one of my several attempts to find sausages that were fairly healthy ( high in protein, low in overall and saturated fats) and liked the taste and texture...I hated almost all of the kinds I have tried. I even bought super fatty sausage of sausage, bratwursts, etc etc... didn't like em. I think it has to do with the casings too- they just irk me. IRK. But, I recently found this one and thought, "What the heck? Jeff will eat them." I even made myself something else that night! I had a few bites of Jeff's to see what the verdict would be, turns out, I really enjoyed it!! So I just purchased these again since I could put it with pasta, or in sandwiches or freeze em if we didn't eat em before the holiday travels. We have Andrea and Nate's Christmas dinner Tuesday, Jeff's parents Tuesday, My parents Thursday, Friday and then Jeff's Nana's Saturday & Sunday. More on that lata....

There is the sausage, it has no artificial ingredients, 120 calories per link ( this is the uncooked package) 6 g fat, 12 g protein!

Maybe its the buffalo sauce but these are absolutely delicious in my opinion if you enjoy sausage!

We made them with rice... another thing I tend not to like, white rice has low nutritional value but to me, it just tastes too starchy. The texture is not my fav. either. I made this Rice A Roni's All Natural Preservative Free Italian Herb Creamy rice.... Its essentially white rice but then you add in a seasoning packed and milk (1/2 cup 1%). It turns into a creamy risotto almost, and the flavor is amazing. I added the black beans for some more fiber and protein, I like them alot but I just end up not being able to eat all the beans.

There is my dish- with hot sauce! ( I took it out of the casing, put it in the pan with Jeff's bad boys and cooked them all on several "sides" for about 15 minutes total). I was "missing" veggies- so on top I threw organic spicy bean sprouts and Earthbound Farms Organic Mixed Greens and a little goddess dressing. This was all delicious together!!! I really enjoyed the texture of the bean sprouts with the sausage! More rice and beans for jeff!

Body:
Gym:
Run 3 miles
Elliptical 20 minutes
Biked 5 miles.

Mind:
Read through lots of my cookbooks and magazines to find cookie recipes I want to try! I also caught up on a blog of a student I used to teach- his mom has started writing about all the treatments he is going through and progress etc.

Soul:
Lots of laying around, relaxing, I caught up on some dvr'd shows!

Christmas movies and cookie recipe pondering. I can't believe it will all be over so soon!
This week is kinda crazy as I mentioned above, we have christmas dinner with all our friends on tuesday ( I am super excited to help andrea with the food!) and then its off to momma mo's for christmas eve, christmas morning, and then in the afternoon we head to my parent's for christmas dinner, then friday, my dad's birthday, then off to Jeff's Nana's at the lake for more christmas family time. We will get back sunday and I'm not sure what we will do for New Year's this year! Andrea and Nate will be in Chicago so we won't be having the usual party with them, I'm not sure if we will host a party or if we will travel somewhere as well.