Lazy Sunday Casserole

This was a delicious meal that we just happened to make on... Sunday.  It was easy, the only real time-consuming part was chopping up all of the vegetables.  It was the first time I've cooked with, or eaten for that matter, fennel.  It's a very interesting vegetable, it has almost a black licorice flavor (which I actually don't like, but eaten as a bite with all of the other vegetables combined it wasn't bad).  My husband liked the flavor of it combined as well.  My sister-in-law informed me that fennel is an ingredient in a lot of Italian sausages (which may be a clue as to why I don't like Italian sausage that much) so it complimented the flavors of the dish well.  

After all of my fennel talk, it was just a small part of the dish and the overall flavor was well balanced and delicious!  The vegetables were moist and it had just the right amount of seasoning.  This is one of our new favorites for sure.  I got it from Kayotic Kitchen, a new blog that I found via Pinterest, and was so happy to find it.  As she suggested, we used vegetables we had on hand, so my slight adaptations are from the vegetables we needed to use up which included mushrooms. My husband was very happy that I finally chose a recipe that used sausage, his favorite.  And I liked it just as much as he did!

Lazy Sunday Casserole

slightly adapted from Kayotic Kitchen

Ingredients

4 sausages (beef or pork)

3 large potatoes

3-4 large carrots

1 red bell pepper

1 large onion

1 fennel bulb

5-6 mushrooms

2 garlic cloves

2 tbsp oil

Kosher salt

Freshly cracked black pepper

1 1/2 tsp Italian herbs

1/2 cup chicken broth

4 tbsp balsamic vinegar

Directions

1. Peel the potatoes, wash them and cut each potato into large cubes. Chop carrots into large pieces and slice mushrooms.  Chop onion into wedges. Remove the base and stalks of the fennel and slice it into wedges as well. Slice bell pepper into strips and put everything in a big roasting tray.

2. Use a big bowl to combine the oil with the Italian herbs, grated or chopped garlic, and chicken broth and pour it over the vegetables. Toss them around to make sure the broth gets everywhere. Season with a generous amount of salt and black pepper.

3. Cover the tray with aluminum foil and pop it in a preheated oven. Bake at 450F (225C) for 45 minutes.

3. While the vegetables are cooking, lightly brown the sausages and slice each sausage in half. (Sausages do not need to be cooked through.)

4. After 45 minutes the potatoes and vegetables should be fork tender. If they’re not, cover the tray with the foil and pop them back in the oven for a few more minutes. If they are fork tender, place the sausages in there and pour the balsamic vinegar all over. Place the tray back in the oven, uncovered, for 25 to 30 minutes. Take it out after 15 minutes, flip over those sausages and ladle some of the juices lurking at the bottom all over the vegetables and sausages. Put it back in the oven for the remaining time, until everything is nice and brown.