Sausage and Bean Soup

Jen Yu gave me a bean itch. It's true. After reading about her warm lentil and sausage salad, I just couldn't stop thinking "beans, sausage, beans, sausage, YUM."

Meanwhile, in the freezer, a package of sausage sat unloved. It was local sausage. Made by the proud descendants of Italian immigrants who somehow made it to the Bluegrass. The vendors sell their links at our Farmer's Market, where they sometimes wear sausage crowns. They have no shame. [please note that if you hit that link with your sound on, you're going to hear them say "I'll make you a sausage you can't refuse" in a hilariously Freudian Godfather reference, complete with a cartoon "Hogfather."]

And yet I'd let the sausage sit in the freezer for...a while.

No more. As of yesterday, those sausage links have become a delicious sausage and white bean soup. I thought about what Jen did, and then looked up bean soup in Mark Bitman (not terribly useful, but he does have a talent for suggesting that bean soup is so easy you really can do it yourself, no problem). Finally, I decided to wing it.

Ingredients:
1 package of sweet Italian sausage (around a pound)
1 sweet onion, chopped, sliced, or diced (use your imagination)
1 can (15 oz.) white beans, drained and rinsed
some fresh Thyme, leaves stripped to make about 2T of leaves.
chicken stock (I used paste plus water. So sue me.)

Directions:
In a large soup pot (I used a 5 quart LeCreuset, enamel-coated cast iron pot), sear the links over medium heat. Remove to a cutting board. Fry the onions in the pot, stirring a bit. Slice the links into little rounds. After 10m or so, when the onions are browning a little, add the links back and fry them for a couple of minutes. Add the beans, then add about 4 cups of stock (or more, if you want). Add the thyme. No need for salt if your stock has it, but if not then add salt to taste (remember that soup gets salty slowly, so add, wait 10 minutes, then taste, then add more. Except you shouldn't taste it until it's been 20 minutes or so, since the sausage is still a little raw. For goodness sake use stock paste and be done with it!).

Cook it on medium heat for 20 minutes or so.

Notes:

• I let it cool, put the whole pot in the fridge overnight, then skimmed off the fat the next morning when it had hardened. If you don't mind delicious porky fat, then skip it. If you have to eat NOW, then skip it.
• You could use less meat, or more beans, no problem. You could also use pasta or rice instead of beans, but I've been having some issues with adding too much and ending up with a thick gloop. So I like beans.
• I can think of other herbs that would be good here. I just had thyme in the fridge. Keep in mind that the sausage has herbs in it, so it will add a lot of flavor. For example, my local, Vitos's sausage must contain a ton of pepper, because the soup has a great black pepper flavor. And fennel - most Italian sausage has fennel in it. Anyway, just taste it.
• Chard or spinach would be delicious in this, but it will get all limp and yucky if you keep it very long. So if you're going to add greens, eat the soup right away.