An original recipe!!!

So the crockpot soup made of random pantry things was FANTASTIC!
I knew we'd be late getting home from the dentist and the temptation to eat out would be great if I couldn't have something ready to eat the minute we got in the door.
I checked out this blog to see if I could find a recipe to try but I didn't have the ingredients on hand for any of the ones that looked good to me so I decided to wing it.
Here's what I did.

Brown one pound of Jimmy Dean sausage with sage (Mine and Kenzie's fave). There's very little fat in this sausage so I just dumped it right into the crockpot from the pan I browned it in. You can drain it if you want. Then I poured a bit of chicken broth into the pan to deglaze it and get all the yummy flavor out. Dump that into the crockpot too. Add the rest of that can of broth plus 3 more to the crockpot.
Now add:
3 cans of beans, drained and rinsed. I used black beans, navy beans and grabanzo beans. I don't see why you couldn't use whatever beans you have on hand.
2 cups of chopped veggies. I used green and red pepper and carrots. You could use whatever you have on hand
1/4 of an onion that was roughly the size of my head. So you could just use one small onion. Diced. ;)
2/3 cup long grain and wild rice (When did I buy this?!?!)
some garlic powder. Maybe 1/2 teaspoon. I'm out of the bottled chopped garlic I like to use.
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
pinch of red pepper flakes
Stir. Cover.
Cook on low for several hours.

I was planning to add some frozen peas at the last minute to increase the veggie content but we were so hungry that I forgot.

We topped each bowl with a bit of shredded mozerella.
I served it with roasted garlic artisan bread but the soup was so good that I didn't even eat any of the bread. The rest of the family did.
Everyone loved this. Even the pickiest one of all.

Now, what to call it? Sausage and 3 bean soup? Yeah. That sounds good.