Sausage, Spinach and Bean Soup in the Crock Pot

I adapted this soup slightly from a recipe found here. 

Soup in the middle of the summer (especially here in Texas) seems out of season to a lot of people. To me, if I'm going to make a hot dinner anyway, I'd rather not heat up the oven (and therefore the whole house) or spend a lot of time standing over a hot stove top. So yes, I make a lot of soups year round because I can throw them in the crock pot and walk away from the heat source.

One little trick that I've picked up about making soups with fresh herbs is the use of a tea ball. It's so much simpler to just stuff your herbs in here and then not have to find and pick them out at the end. Or worse, wind up with a whole bay leaf (example) in your mouth because you thought it was a piece of spinach. I prefer the style pictured to the left, because the handle makes things easier for me, but the chained type work as well. Just make sure the ball itself is large enough to accommodate whatever herbs you might choose to add. If you do use the chain type, make sure to fasten the chain to something outside your pot so it doesn't slip in, and whichever kind you pick, remember that it will be HOT after simmering for a while, so be careful when removing it.

So, on to the recipe!

Ingredients

• 3-4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 onion
• 3 carrots
• plenty of spinach or kale
• 2 cans of white beans
• 1/2 tsp dried oregano
• 2 whole bay leaves
• salt and pepper to taste
• 4 cups chicken or veggie broth
• 2 cups water
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 package of your favorite smoked sausage

Steps

1. As always, start by mincing your garlic. You can just toss it in the bottom of your cooker right away. The time it takes to chop the rest of the veggies should be plenty long enough for it to sit before cooking.
2. Chop your veggies: onion, carrots and greens. For recipes like this, I set the inner bowl part of my crock pot on the counter next to my cutting board and just dump ingredients in as I go. The original recipe says not to add the spinach until you're almost ready to serve, but I prefer to cook it in with the rest as it yields a more flavorful broth. It doesn't look as pretty when finished though, so there is a trade off.
3. Drain and thoroughly rinse your beans and dump them into the pot too. 
4. Add oregano, bay leaves, salt and pepper, and any other herbs you like. For this recipe I keep the bay leaves separate in the tea ball and everything else just gets tossed in the pot. 
5. Pour the broth and water over top and give it a good stir. 
6. Cover and cook on low for 7-8 hours or high for 3-4 hours.
7. About 30 minutes before serving, heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. Add sausage, and cook, stirring frequently, until lightly browned on all sides. Stir cooked sausage into pot. The original poster did this step first, and that's certainly an option. I find that long cooking smoked sausage sometimes saps its flavor though, so I add mine in at the end. You'll get less sausage flavor in your broth, but more sausage flavor in your... sausage. Which is where I prefer it to be anyway!
8. Serve with crusty bread or oyster crackers, and if you like, sprinkle a little shredded cheese on top (white cheddar is an excellent choice).