Sausages with White Beans in Tomato Sauce

My mom gave me tons and tons of tomatoes from her garden that we needed to eat up, and I found this recipe on epicurious.com that seemed to fit the bill. I tweaked the original a little bit - I'll make note of the changes I made at the bottom. We had it tonight, and it was fantastic. I did take a picture, and it was so very, very awful that you get the pretty picture from epicurious instead.

Sausages with White Beans in Tomato Sauce

Makes 4 to 6 servings

Ingredients

2 tbsp. olive oil
4 garlic cloves, peeled, crushed
6 whole sweet Italian sausages (about 1 1/4 pounds)
6 cups cooked white beans with 1/2 cup reserved cooking liquid
1 14- to 15-ounce can plum tomatoes in juice; tomatoes chopped, juice reserved
2 large fresh sage sprigs
1 cup (or more) water

Heat oil in large skillet over medium heat. Add garlic. Saute garlic until golden, about 2 minutes. Add sausages; saute until browned, about 5 minutes. Add 1/2 cup reserved bean cooking liquid, tomatoes with juice, and sage. Simmer 5 minutes. Add beans and 1 cup water. Cover and simmer until sausages are cooked through, adding more water by 1/4 cupfuls if dry, about 30 minutes. Uncover and simmer until sauce thickens, if desired. Season with salt and pepper.

* Changes I made tonight - I used fresh tomatoes instead of canned. 2 cups of diced tomatoes is about the same as one 15-ounce can of tomatoes. And then I used canned beans instead of cooking them - four cans of great northern white beans makes about six cups. I used some of the liquid from the can as the 1/2 cup "reserved cooking liquid" from the beans in the recipe. And make sure you drain and rinse the beans before putting them in the skillet.