Jalapeño cheddar sausage with veggies and rice

Before we had our first kid, Reva (#cuteassbaby), the wife (#hotwife) said that I needed to be better than “I don’t know how to make that” at 4 different recipes. I needed to pull my weight in the kitchen. Those recipes needed to be relatively easy to make, were tasty and didn’t require a real culinary genius to master, which I am not. Scrambled eggs didn’t count. Fine.

The key for me was just finding a few ingredients that we both liked and select dishes that would be hard for me to mess up.

Alright, what was I good at? My chopping skills needed work, but passable. I can boil water. I can sauté shit. I can combine things in a bowl like a boss.

Now what should I strive to put in that bowl? Enter: Opa’s Smoked Meats, Jalapeno with Cheddar Smoked Sausage. These damn things are good! On the grill, steamed, whatever. Tasty AF and spicy without messing up your pallet. Supported by the wife, the adventure began.

Took me a few times to get the hang of everything and not take a full hour to make the dish. Like anything else, practice has brought me to churning this bad boy out in 30 minutes.

Serving size is not an exact science in our house, but I’d say the below makes 4-6 servings. There’s typically 1 full serving leftover.

Let’s get cooking!

Prep: 10 minutes Cook: 20 minutes Total: 30 minutes

INGREDIENTS YOU’LL NEED

4-6 Opa’s jalapeno cheddar sausages
1 yellow squash
1 zucchini
1 cup mushrooms
4 cups of cooked rice (used boil-in-a-bag)
1 clove garlic
Scallion/Green onion
1 chicken bouillon cube
1.5 tablespoons olive oil
Kosher salt and fresh black pepper

INSTRUCTIONS

Sausage

I like to get sausage in almost every bite, so I make up to 6 links, but as few as 4 works. Follow the directions on the package, but you’re essentially going to heat-up the already cooked links.
Put some cuts into the links, so they don’t explode when they steam
In a stainless sauté pan, add the links, about an inch of water and heat that bad boy up.
Once the water starts to boil, throw on the lid, put it to simmer for about 8-9 minutes. You’ll know it’s done when glorious cheese starts to come out of the cuts you made.
When done, drain the water and cut the links however you like.
Place in a bowl on the side
Don’t rinse the pan, you’ll use it…right now.

Veggies

While your sausages are heating up, course chop the squash, zucchini and mushrooms to the level of chunkiness you’re into. No judgments.
In the just used pan, add a tablespoon and a half of olive oil and garlic.
Heat up the oil and the cook the garlic until it starts to brown
Add zucchini and squash; add kosher salt and pepper
Once they start to cook down, add mushrooms. S&P again
When all veggies are done, add the sausage back and cook on low for 1-2 minutes

Rice

If you’re boiling rice, I like to add one chicken bullion cube to give it a little extra taste.
Boil-in-a-bag might not be for you. You’ll want about 4 cups of rice, so however you want to get there, go nuts.
Substitute brown rice or orzo to keep the dish fresh.

Combine