Hotel Cooking Meal 1: Turkey Sausage and Vegetables Over Rice

Hello from Beavercreek, Ohio!

I'm camping out here for a couple of weeks helping my mom train my niece's service dog. We've got a hotel room with a small kitchen and have committed to cooking more instead of eating out so much. It's cheaper, healthier and easy!

Well, at least that's what I want to show. (Notice I didn't say easIER but it is easy.)

This afternoon we stopped at Aldi and picked up enough food for 3 complete meals.

Total cost: $26.21

On tonight's menu, Turkey Sausage and Vegetables Over Rice.

Ingredients include:

• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 8oz package of mushrooms, sliced thicker
• 3 cloves of garlic, chopped
• 1 package of sweet Italian turkey sausage
• 1 zucchini, chopped
• 1 yellow bell pepper, chopped
• 2 packages of 90-second precooked instant brown rice

Add the onion, mushroom and garlic to a non-stick skillet with a pinch or two of salt and start to cook over medium heat.

You guys know I'm a big fan of Chopped and often play personal versions with myself using what I have on hand. Well, tonight I felt like I was playing Cut-Throat Kitchen.  The resources in the hotel kitchen are pretty limited. I had to use a plate as a cutting board, a dull bread knife to cut everything and this pot because the skillet was too tiny.

Notice I didn't use any oil. Of course you CAN use it but the onion and mushrooms will begin to sweat in a non-stick pan if you add them when the pan is cold.

Let the onion and mushrooms cook down for about 5 minutes and then add the sausage. You could keep them whole but they will take longer to cook. You could slice them but cutting raw sausage is a pain if it's not partially frozen so I removed the casing to keep it easy.

Just slice down lengthwise and plop it into the pot. Do this for all 5 and then smash to break apart and brown with the onion and mushroom. You may need to raise the heat to medium-high. I was cooking on an electric stove so getting the heat thing down wasn't as simple as it is over gas.

Once the sausage is browned, add the zucchini and peppers.

I add my veggies last so they don't overcook. Lower the heat back down to medium, cover and cook about 5 minutes.

Why yes that is the skillet on top of the pot because there are no lids in this place!

While waiting, heat the rice in the microwave according to the package.

Once you uncover, the veggies will be just soft and you'll have all this wonderful "juice" to pour over the rice.

Serve about a cup (I'm estimating as I don't have any measuring cups but it was quite a lot) over a cup of rice.

The whole meal took about 20 minutes from start to finish. Even Mom was impressed when I said it was done. She also loved it and now we have 2 servings left over!

By the way, notice how much better that photo is than the rest. I mean it's not amazing but, wow, what a difference natural light makes! All I did was take the plate near the window.

That's "Cowboy," my niece's service dog watching very intently. He's such a good boy but has a long way to go. The training is pretty intense.

So there you have it, meal 1 in my hotel-cooking adventure. Next I'm planning a crockpot meal and I have a simple non-meat idea as well. Stay tuned!

Total cost of meal: $10.84, which includes total cost of ALL items used for this dish but many will be used for other meals as well like the onion, garlic and bell peppers. That's only $2.71 a serving!!

Click here to see Hotel Cooking Meal 2 -- Beef Stew With Sweet Potatoes, Mushrooms and Smashed Garlic

Approx Nutritional Information per serving

Servings	Amt per Serving
4	~cup of sausage and veggies over 1 cup of rice
Calories	Fat	Fiber	WWPs
490	14g	6g	old: 10	new: 13
Sugar	Sat Fat	Carbs	Protein
3g	4g	59g	33g

Note: This is NOT a sponsored Aldi post. They provided no compensation product or otherwise. I'm just a fan. All opinions expressed are my own.