BBQ Soup or How to Hide the Lima Beans From Your Kids

This recipe came about because of a goof, I was attempting to make bbqbeans but they were to runny/juicey so I started trying to thicken them, the results were far from bbqbeans but everyone thought that whatever it was, it was pretty good. The "recipe" is really more of a guide and has evolved over the years. This is the latest version. Like all my "recipe" guides this is very easy to adapt, instead of smoked sausage you can use brats or cooked italian sausage, potatos can be any variaty even canned, add other veggies or kick up the heat with jalapenos, no crock pot? the original was cooked on the bbq grill but a regular pot on the stove would work

 (edit) Update: This turned out thicker than usual, I think because I used pasta, the pasta also got mushy when the leftovers were reheated.
  Conclusion: Don't cook the pasta with the rest, add it if you want just before eating

Step 1: Lets Go Shopping

By shopping I usually mean hitting up the pantry, in this case some of the canned goods need to be rotated out of the hurricane stores

 Im using canned kidney and lima beans this time, you can use whatever beans you like and either canned or dried
 I like the bottled BBQ sauce from the Dollar Tree as a base to that I add, vinager, brown sugar, yellow mustard, ketchup, salsa or picante sauce, italian dressing, chocolate powder and an onion. I don't measure but the approximate amounts follow.

 1 bottle bbq sauce
  2 tablespoons vinager
  1/8 cup brown sugar
  tablespoon mustard
  cup of ketchup (catsup)
  1/4 cup salsa or picante sauce
   1/8cup italian dressing
   1/2 teaspoon chocolate pwder

  You'll also need about a 1/2 pound of pulled pork, 2 links of smoked sausage ( yes I cheated, they are both store bought) and 2cups of dried pasta or egg noodles


Tools: 
crock pot
skillet
knife
canopener


 

Step 2: Ready Set Cook

Open and drain the beans then put in the crockpot/slow cooker, dice the onion into large chunks and add it to the pot and add all the sauce ingredients chunk the potatos to about bite size and add to the pot ( you can preboil in salted water to speed up the soups cooking) cut the smoked sausage into bite sized pieces and lightly brown in oil or bacon grease in the skillet, add undrained to the soup. add about a cup of water or stock to the pot and bring it all to a simmer. Finally add your dried pasta (or not, its good both ways) and cook until the pasta is done. if the pasta makes it to thick or unsoup like.. add more stock or water or leave it thick and call it BBQ Stew!

  Sorry but for some reason all the pics of these steps turned out blurry and dark

Step 3: Enjoy

This soup is done when the potatos and pasta is cooked. This is great served with garlic bread or a hard roll, its also good over rice (if you didn't use pasta) This dish is very filling and although its not exactly cheap if you buy the ingredients just for the soup its a great budget extender if you use left over pulled pork and sausage