Black beans and rice with sausage

This is a super-easy go-to dinner for busy evenings--(we got home from the park at 7:30 after running and boys riding bikes through mud puddles) This is a perfect quick dinner and not bad in the calorie department.

• Turkey smoked sausage--I use whatever brand I can find--tonight it was Hillshire Farms
• Packaged rice and beans--my favorite is VIGO brand Black Beans and Rice, but I have also used Mahatma brand Red Beans and Rice and Zataran brand

I cut up the turkey sausage into small pieces and brown it in a large skillet. In the meantime, boil water according to package directions. Add sausage to the rice and beans when done browning and cook for as long as recommended.

While rice and beans finish cooking, cut up tomatoes and onion (purple, if available)--salt and pepper and a little red wine vinegar to make an easy pico de gallo salad. Serve salad over rice and beans with a dollop of light sour cream or Greek yogurt--stir it all together and YUM!

(or just top it with a large spoonful of chunky salsa with the Greek yogurt--because some nights it is just too much trouble to make the simplest salad in the world--yes, I was tired and lazy tonight!)

This is easy and tasty--my boys like the sausage and tolerate the rice and beans--sometimes I let them dip their sausage in ketchup--tonight I just gave them some light sour cream for"dip." They gobbled it up--helped that they rode a mile or so on their little tiny bikes. Hungry boys always eat better! And there is a reason rice and beans are a staple food for half the world. Filling and nutritious--low fat, with some protein. Carbs in the rice, but I ran tonight, so there!

By the way, about 250 calories for a serving of rice and beans with sausage and only a little more for Greek yogurt and salsa!