Thursday 1/29: Polish Sausage and Potatoes

This one is actually a family favorite. It's an adaptation of my mom's recipe, which she cooked on the stovetop (takes about 40 minutes with thin-sliced potatoes and sausage. If doing it on the stove saute the onions and sausage, sliced thinner than in this recipe, add the thinly sliced potatoes, and put water in to just almost come up to the top. Then cover and simmer until potatoes are tender. For us I usually use about 1 lb. potatoes, 1 package kielbasa, 1 medium onion. Can also be baked or put in foil packets, as you desire, and is easily done in a dutch oven over a fire.)

Here's what I'm doing (and I'm doing massive amounts because more people have joined AND this is my dinner tomorrow too):

4 lbs. baby red potatoes, halved
2 large sweet onions, sliced into half-circles
3 packages polska kielbasa (or other smoked sausage-- I'm actually using 1 package all-beef kielbasa, for the flavor, and 2 packages turkey smoked sausage, for lower fat and more protein per ounce), sliced into 1- to 1 1/2-inch pieces
water

Toss the potatoes, onions, and sausage in the slow-cooker together. Add water until the water is about 1/4 of the way up the side of the food. Cook on Low for at least 5 hours, until potatoes are cooked through. (You could do High but I never have to figure out the time.)

It's simple comfort food but I think it's a winner. Everyone I've ever served it to likes it and for a Thursday when they're working late, it's perfect. Resist the urge to add any seasonings (unless you want more garlic, that works well.) The sausage salts and flavors the potatoes quite nicely, and the onions get sweet and counterbalance the starchiness of the potatoes and the meatiness of the sausage.

I divided a third or so out into our home crockpot for our dinner tomorrow night. It was too much to fit even in a 6 qt and it looked good to me.