Sausage and Bean Hotpot - Take 2

After my adventures with the recipe for the Sausage and Bean Hotpot, I decided to give it another go.

My modified recipe:

Sausage and Bean Hotpot

Serves 3-4

Ingredients

• 8 Irish Pork Sausages
• 1 can tomato puree or tomato sauce
• 1 can plum or cherry tomatoes
• 1 yellow onion, chopped
• 1 red onion, chopped
• 3-5 chopped garlic cloves
• 3 x 400g/14oz cans beans (any kind)
• 1 tbsp muscovado sugar (sort of like brown sugar)
• 1 tsp English mustard
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil

In a large casserole, fry the garlic, onions and sausages in  vegetable oil until the sausages are browned - about 10 mins.

Add the tomato sauce and tomatoes, stirring well, then stir in the beans, sugar and mustard. Bring to the simmer and cook for 20-30 mins. Serve with bread.

Frying first the garlic and onions then adding the sausages:

Adding in everything else and letting it simmer for 20-30 minutes: (Make sure your dish is large enough to hold everything)

Then serve: 

Thoughts: Even after all this, I still can't recommend this recipe. It ranged from being too spicy (wherever the English mustard is) to being too bland (everywhere else). Plum tomatoes are, apparently, the size of regular tomatoes and nearly caused my dish to spill out over the stove. On that note, two onions were overkill and took up a lot of room - if I make this again I will use only one. 

For the beans: I used two cans of baked beans and one can of mixed beans and the mixed beans were surprisingly bland. Given how cheap they were, this should not have been surprising. 

Still, it was cheap, made four meals and was full of protein.

For these reasons, I'm shelving this recipe unless I can figure out a way to make the tastes blend together better. 

8 Irish Sausages: EUR 0.95 at Aldi
Baked Beans, 2 cans at EUR 0.29 a can = EUR 0.58 at Aldi
Canned Plum Tomatoes: EUR 0.37 at Aldi
Mixed Beans: EUR 0.99 at Tesco
Tomato Puree: EUR 0.49 at Tesco
Red Onion: EUR 0.22 at Tesco
Yellow Onion EUR 0.33 at Tesco
Garlic Cloves, 1/2 of a bulb at EUR 0.85 for four bulbs  = EUR 0.11 at Lidl
Vegetable Oil, 1/20 of a bottle at EUR 1.35/bottle = EUR 0.07 at Aldi
English Mustard, 1/40 of a bottle at EUR 0.45/bottle = EUR 0.01 at Lidl
Dark Muscovado Sugar, 1/100 of a bag at EUR 1.65/bag = EUR 0.02 at Tesco
Total Cost: EUR 4.14 for 4 servings or EUR 1.04 per serving