Ingredients:
6 cups chicken or turkey stock
2 medium turnips, cubed
1 onion, chopped
2 carrots, diced
3 stalks celery, diced
1 1/2 teaspoons dried basil
1 1/2 teaspoons dried parsley
1 teaspoon dried oregano
3 green onions, diced
2 1/2 cups refrigerated cheese tortellini (about 24 oz)
2 cups chopped fresh or frozen rapini
1 lb smoked turkey sausage, cubed and browned
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper

Directions:
Place the stock, turnips, onion, carrots, spices and celery in 4 quart slow cooker. Stir. Cook on low 8 hours then stir in the green onions, tortellini, rapini and sausage. Cover and continue to cook on low for 20-30 minutes or until warmed through.

My thoughts:

I’ve been terribly busy the last few weeks with a lot of recipe development jobs; one very large and a few small ones. Luckily, I can eat what I make but there are times dinner needs to be something other than cupcakes. In these instances the slow cooker in my best friend. For this recipe I prepped everything the night before (even browning the sausage!) and had a container of the spices and veggies that went in in the morning, a sausage container and a container with the rest of the PM ingredients. That morning I just dumped in my stock, the morning container and went about my day. Then, just a little bit before I wanted to eat, I dumped in the rest and voila, a meal that took only 2 minutes hands-on time the day I ate it. And you know what? It was really good! The turkey sausage added a smoky note and it was full of vegetables including one of my favorites, rapini.