For the past few weeks I have been craving pork sausages and mashed potatoes and it’s taken me a couple of weeks to make it, but finally the day arrived yesterday. Courtesy of Knorr and Spar’s whatsfordinner recipes, I made the Summer Sausage Bake. If you are cooking for 1 this meal will last you a good few days. It will keep nicely in the fridge and you can just pop it in the microwave for a couple of minutes and voila!

I served mine with mashed potatoes, but the recipe has potatoes in it so this isn’t necessary. The potatoes in the bake didn’t cook through despite being thinly sliced so I would leave the potatoes out and just make mashed potato or precook the potatoes for longer before adding them to the bake.

I had my icing course last night so I made the bake and the mashed potatoes between 4 and 5pm. It has to be in the oven for half an hour. Then I took it out, left it on the top of the stove for my husband to heat and eat whenever he wanted it and I had some when I got home.

The mashed potatoes don’t really keep that well, but at a push it works. They go kind of stodgy, but still taste good with the sauce from the sausages.  No pictures this time, but this really isn’t a meal about looks!

Mashed Potatoes for 2 (because not everyone knows how)

Peel approximately 3 to 4 potatoes (depends on the size of the potatoes and the people:))

Place them in a pot and cover with enough water to cover the potatoes well. Add a pinch of salt.

Bring to the boil and then turn down heat and allow to simmer for about half an hour.

Prick the potatoes with a knife to test that they are soft throughout.

Remove from heat and drain water.

Add a blob of butter, some salt and pepper and ground nutmeg (optional). I also add a splash of milk or cream.

Use your masher and mash the lot together. In the event that you don’t have a masher you can use a fork, but it will take longer.

Summer Sausage Bake

(Serves 4-6)

• 500 gms pork sausages (err on the side of more if the package isn’t exactly 500gms)
• 25ml oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 apple, cut into slices
• 2-3 large potatoes
• 1 sachet KNORR Tasty Minestrone Soup with Mixed Herbs
• 600ml water
• 2 Tbsp Tomato Sauce
• 1 tsp mustard

1. Brown the sausages in oil in a frying pan and place in a casserole dish. Preheat oven to 180 degrees centigrade.

2. While sausages are browning, chop the onion, peel and slice the potatoes and slice the apples (leave the peel on). I also sliced the onions instead of chopping them.

3. Once sausages are browned and removed. Place the onion, potato and apple in the frying pan and fry for 5 min. There should still be enough oil from cooking the sausages, but you can add a little more. Here is where I recommend adding the potatoes first and letting them cook through for a bit longer and then adding the apple and the onion.

4. This does not have to be cooked right through, but needs to be slightly cooked. Remove from frying pan and spoon over sausages in casserole dish.

5. Mix soup with water, tomato sauce and mustard. I found that a whisk was the best tool for this.

6. Season to taste. (Not much to do here. I prefer to let whoever is eating it to season the food themselves.)

7. Place in preheated oven for 30 minutes. (Remember that the mixture may bubble over so its wise to put it on a baking tray to make sure that you don’t spend the next few hours cleaning your oven.)

8. Serve with couscous, rice or mashed potatoes. I can’t resist mashed potatoes for this.

If you have people coming over for supper you can make this the day before at least up to before putting it in the oven, then just pop it in the oven once you’ve got your mashed potatoes boiling and you’ll have a hearty homemade meal for everyone.

Sausage and mash craving…satisfied!