Ingredients

1.

Italian All Natural Ground Mild Sausage by Johnsonville
1 pound
2.

Olive Oil
2 tablespoon
3.

Green Bell Pepper
4 ounce
4.

Brown Mushrooms (Italian Or Crimini Mushrooms), Raw, High In Vitamin D
4-½ ounce
5.

Black Olives
3 ounce
6.

Oregano, Dried
½ teaspoon
7.

Onion Powder
¼ teaspoon
8.

Basil, Dried
½ teaspoon
9.

Garlic
1 teaspoon
10.

Marinara Or Spaghetti Sauce Commercially Prepared
6 tablespoon
11.

Beef Broth
2 cup

Instructions

1.
Brown your Italian sausage first. It up to you to decide if you want to use spicy or mild sausage. Use either ground sausage or remove the casing from Italian sausage links. Brown the meat in a wide pan over your stove on high heat. Use a spatula to break the ground sausage up into chunky bites. The sausage will break down more as it cooks in your crockpot, but you want hearty bite-sized pieces. Set the browned meat aside for the next step.
2.
Pour the olive oil in the base of a crockpot. Next, toss in diced bell peppers, mushrooms, and olives. Sprinkle the oregano, onion powder, basil, and garlic over the veggies. Follow with the tablespoons of marinara sauce. Place the browned sausage on top of the marinara and pour the beef broth over the meat. Cook the crockpot on high heat for 4 hours or on low for 8 hours. Stir all the ingredients together before serving 1 cup per person. Follow Steps 3 and 4 for optional additions to your stew.
3.
Option #1: Before turning off the crockpot, remove 1 cup of liquid. Stir 1-2 teaspoons of cornstarch into the liquid to thicken it before stirring back into your crockpot. Let the stew thicken in the crockpot with the lid off for another 10 minutes before serving. If you don want to use cornstarch, you can do the same thing with 1 ounce of cream cheese. Make sure the cream cheese is at room temperature before stirring into the hot liquid. Serve the thickened stew or continue onto the next option.
4.
Option #2: Turn your oven broiler on to high. Fill oven-safe bowls with servings of stew. Lay a slice of mozzarella cheese over each serving of stew and set the bowls on a sheet tray. Melt the cheese under your broiler until the cheese bubbles and turns golden brown. You can also do this with provolone or smoked gouda cheese. You can add extra grated parmesan or crushed red pepper flakes on top of your stew just like you would a pizza.