I'm the queen of last minute throw together meals...I never seam to be able to plan ahead most days, other than taking a roll of hamburger meat out of the freezer to defrost and then half an hour before it's too late I look in my kitchen to see what I can make with that defrosted hunk of meat.
More recently (the past year) I have renewed my love affair with my crock pot which has made my life much easier now that I'm homeschooling, taking care of a 4 year old and full time care of my diabetic, 78 year old grandmother.
My meals have been limited and changed some, due to my grandmother's dietary needs and her picky eating habits. But, the slow cooker has been my saving grace...The other day I found polish sausage on sale and grabbed a couple, not really knowing what to make with it. Yeah, I can make the usual sausage taco's or sausage and cabbage stew (which I forgot to get the cabbage at the store). But, I figured I would take a look online. I found Heather Reynolds, "Stupid Easy Crock Pot/ Slow Cooker Sausage and Potatoes" on Food.com.
I didn't have all the ingredients for her recipe, but I took the idea and ran with it. After digging around in the fridge I found I had half a package (4 of an 8 oz package) of cream cheese, I didn't have ranch powdered seasoning, however I did have ranch dip, like the kind you use for chips or veggies...and plain yogurt.
So, I chopped up the potatoes and sausage (I used red potatoes cut into small 1/2 inch wedges) and a small onion and placed them in the bottom of the crock pot. I mixed my cream cheese, yogurt and ranch dip in a bowl...added a little salt and pepper and a dash of minced garlic and put it in my crockpot for 6 hrs on high.
Well, it worked! The family loved it and I loved the tangy-ness of it with the yogurt.
So here is the final recipe.
1 cup plain yogurt
3 tbsp ranch dip (ranch flavor packet if you have it)
1 package (1lb) sausage
6-8 red potatoes cleaned and sliced into 1/2" slices
In the crock pot for 6hrs.
Mix it towards the end to make sure that all the yogurt mix is covering all the potatoes and sausage.
Salt and pepper to taste.
Enjoy!
