Slow-cooked goodness

When living in Los Angeles, there's not many opportunities to use your slow-cooker as it just heats up your home further. When we lived in Seattle, I used at least once a week. Not only did it help warm up the kitchen but it made our home smell so good.

This week it's been very cold (for us Angelinos) and so when meal planning this week I threw in a slow-cooker recipe. It was a bit of a challenge as my slow-cooker cookbook is filled with high calorie and high fat recipes, based mainly of creamed soups and/or milk. I did find one, however, that intrigued me, and there was no cream or tomatoes! Bonus! Extra bonus was it only took 2 hours to cook so I could make it after I got home from work. It was very filling and only 192 calories per serving, I felt really good about my healthy and tasty recipe choice. This one is definitely going in the "make again" pile.

Sausage and Wild Rice Casserole

Ingredients:

1 package long grain and wild rice mix with seasoning packet
3 sausage links (I used pre-cooked ones from Trader Joe's), cut up
1 cup chopped celery
1 cup chopped onion
2-2 1/2 cups water

Brown sausage, onions, and celery, and put into slow cooker. Add rice and seasoning packet, then pour in water. Cook on LOW for 2-3 hours, or until water is gone and rice is tender. Serves 3-4.