Easy and Delicious Greek Dish

I love food!  All kinds of food.  I have too many cookbooks.  Even after purging them, I still have too many cookbooks.  So it shouldn't really surprise anyone that I have a Greek cookbook.  The Complete Book of Greek Cooking, by Rena Salaman and Jan Cutler, is a keeper.  I love how it has information in the front about foods from the region and lots of pictures.  I'm a very visual person, so pictures are important. 

This cookbook does have a lot of fish recipes, which I don't use as much as I would like due to cost and availability at my usual gathering meadows (aka: grocery stores). BUT, it also has a lot of other recipes that are amazing. This is one that I substitute regular Italian sausages instead of a Greek sausage, and it is still a favorite of mine... Spicy Sausage and Pepper Stew.  I also use diced tomatoes instead of skinning and chopping up tomatoes, and I use dried parsley if I don't have fresh.... the same with thyme.  If you use dried instead of fresh, cut down to about 1/3 of what you would have used fresh or play around with the amount until you get it to your liking. 

My kids like sausage... well, they basically love any type of ground up meat, but especially sausages. They probably wished I had it for every meal.  I make sure I pair it with green beans (which my kids like) and I might cut up a raw pepper for them if they won't eat the cooked peppers.  I know they'll eat them raw. Rolls, or toast,  would go nicely also.  This makes sure that my kids still get a good meal even if they won't eat the cooked peppers in the stew.  I know they'll eat sausages and I'll choose other nutritious sides that they like to balance it all out for them.

Here's the recipe.

Equipment Needed: cutting board, chef knife, large skillet or sauce pan, mixing spoon, slotted spoon, (optional: medium baking dish)

Spicy Sausage and Pepper Stew

Ingredients:
1 1/2 lb red and green bell peppers
5 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 1/4 lb spicy sausages (Italian garlic sausages, Merguez or Toulouse if you cannot find Greek sausages.... OR regular Italian sausage.)
14 oz tomatoes, skinned and roughly sliced (or  one 14 oz can diced tomatoes, you can drain it if you want)
1 tsp dried oregano or some fresh thyme, chopped
2/3 c hot water
3 Tbsp chopped fresh flat leaf parsley (or about 1 Tbsp dried parsley)
salt and ground black pepper
chopped fresh thyme, to garnish

Process:
1)  Halve and seed the peppers and cut them into quarters.  Heat the olive oil in a large, heavy pan, add the peppers and saute them over a medium heat for 10-15 minutes until they start to brown.
2)  Meanwhile, slice the sausages into bitesize chunks.  Then carefully tip the hot olive oil into a frying pan.
3)  Add the sausages and fry them briefly, turning them frequently, to get rid of the excess fat but not to cook them.  As soon as they are brown, remove from the pan with a slotted spoon and drain on kitchen paper.
4)  Add the tomatoes, sausages and herbs to the peppers.  Stir in the water and season with salt and pepper, then cover the pan and cook gently for about 30 minutes.  Mix in the chopped parsley and serve piping hot.

Notes:
1)  If you prefer, stir in the parsley, spread the mixture in a medium baking dish and bake in an oven preheated to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.  Cook for about 40 minutes, stirring occasionally.  (This is actually how I prefer to do it, but it does dirty another dish.)
2)  You can make this meatless by getting vegetable Italian sausages.  I actually just bought some to try out from either Aldi or Lidl (I can't remember).