Potato and Sausage Casserole

This is one of our favorite dishes in our house. It always comes out perfect and it always tastes amazing. It's perfect no matter what the weather but it looks exceptionally nice during fall. I adapted it from this recipe here. Although you'll notice I've changed quite a few things.

Now keep in mind that when I make this I am making it to feed a small army. There are 6 of us who eat on this and this is how much I make so we have left overs the next day! If you have smaller herd to feed then I suggest cutting this recipe in half. Which should be pretty simple.

Ingredients:

Two packages of sausage
Potatoes (I like to use a variety like gold, red, purple, and whatever else come in the medley bags from Trader Joe's.)
Sweet potatoes
Onions
Bell peppers (yellow, orange, and red are beautiful and excellent together in this)
Sea salt
Pepper
Italian herbs
Red wine vinegar
Olive oil
Curry powder
Garlic Salt
Onion powder

Plus whatever veggies you may want to add in extra. The blogger I got this from also added things like baby carrots and fennel to hers.

I know some ingredients might seem redundant but I assure you it all has it's place and comes together in perfect harmony.

First chop up your potatoes, onions, sweet potatoes and whatever else you decided to add as extra. Wait on the bell peppers for now though.

Drizzle just a little olive oil in a glass pan and then toss them all in. 
 

Yumm, looks good already! Now you need to start on the seasonings. Mix 1/2 cup of water with a 1 teaspoon of olive oil, 1 teaspoon curry powder, 2 teaspoons garlic powder,  teaspoon onion powder, 1 teaspoon sea salt, a few cranks of fresh ground pepper, 1 and 1/2 tsp Italian herbs, and 4 table spoons red wine vinegar. Mix it all and then drizzle over your chopped veggies.

Now cover the glass pan with tin foil and pop that baby in the oven for 45 min at 450. In my experience it is always perfect at this temp for that amount of time. However you are looking for your potatoes to be fork tender. Although the sweet potatoes start out super hard they will be the softest at this point so check something other then a sweet potato.

While those are cooking in the oven I start on the sausage. I like to use sweet Italian brauts and one package of fresh breakfast links (Not the ones from the freezer section). My husband likes the variety and the smaller ones are easier for the kids to eat. Sometimes I use the maple ones and sometimes just regular. While I like maple sausage I do not like eating the maple ones in this. However my husband and kids really enjoy them in this. I stick to the brauts though.

These should brown on the outside but they don't need to be thoroughly cooked. They will cook more in the oven.

Cut the larger sausages in half and when your veggies have finished getting their bake on pull them out. Carefully remove the tinfoil and put the sausages on top. Then pop it back in the oven uncovered for another 15 minutes.

While that's cooking cut up your bell peppers. When the 15 min are up cover your casserole with the bell peppers and put it back in for another 15 mins. I like my peppers to still be pretty crisp but if you like them more cooked then by all means add them earlier.

It should look like this when it's done and your house will smell like pure wonderment. :-)

If you try this I would love to hear your opinions on it. I'd also love to know what if anything you change. I love to tweak recipes. Although I think this one is pretty close to perfection. ;-)