Sausage and Chickpea Stew

This doesn't look all that appetizing, but I swear it was good. Maybe a little heavy on the spinach, but otherwise good.

The recipe is Sausage and Chickpea Stew Real Simple. And it was pretty points friendly to begin with. I swapped the regular sausage for turkey sausage and used less oil, but otherwise, it's chockful of veggies and with all the beans and greens, it's a really hearty stew. I also ended up adding more broth than it called for because I wanted a soupier texture, but I kept the rest the same.

I liked the addition of fresh parsley and cilantro. It gave the soup a lot of flavor -- without it would have been a tasteless soup. But if I make it again I'll skip the frozen spinach in favor or fresh spinach. I love spinach as much as the next gal, but honestly, it was just too much.

Another thing I tried with this soup was dried beans. I cooked up the amount I needed for the soup yesterday. And I usually hate chickpeas. The texture weirds me out. But the dried beans weren't as mushy as canned beans and had a good bite to them. Definitely like dried beans better.

Do you take the time to prepare dried beans or do you prefer canned?