30 Little Things – Day Six – “Soupy Tuesday”

We’re feeling a little under the weather here, so I thought I’d make some chicken noodle soup for dinner; although, even if we weren’t sick, I still probably would have made soup for dinner, because we typically make soup about once (or twice…or three times…) a week.

My inpsiration this time was the Olive Garden’s Zuppa Toscana, which is Chris’s favorite soup, but of course I substituted almost everything in there for something else. And, because my cooking kicks the Olive Garden’s cooking’s ass, Chris said it was the best soup he’s ever had. Aaaand, he was probably right. The soup was bad-ass.

So, since I’m feeling generous, I thought I’d share my bad-ass soup recipe recipe here, although I should warn you that there is neither a chicken nor a noodle in this soup. However, it’s still delicious and even though he’s sitting on the couch looking like he might pass out, I’m pretty sure this soup is curing Chris’s flu.

WHAT YOU’LL NEED:
– 1 pound-ish Italian turkey sausage (it usually comes in either a Sweet or Hot flavor. I used Hot, although I might try the Sweet next time, since we use a lot of heat elsewhere)
– 2 cans white beans (or navy beans or cannellini beans, which is what I would have preferred, but Vons didn’t have them)
– 1 carton thingy of mushrooms (baby bellas or creminis), sliced
– 1 bunch of kale, (or whatever kind of greens you like…swiss chard, spinach, etc.), torn into 1 inch-ish pieces
– 4 or 5 cipollini onions, diced (my Vons has them, but if yours doesn’t, 1 medium sweet onion is fine too)
– A lot of garlic, minced
– 2 cans of chicken stock
– A tablespoon-ish of that Italian seasoning blend stuff (basil, parsley, rosemary, oregano, whatever)
– Lots of crushed red pepper flake
– Some salt (kosher!)
– A lot of fresh cracked back pepper

WHAT TO DO:
– Brown the sausage in a stock or soup pot
– Dice and slice and mince your onions and mushrooms and garlic
– When the turkey is almost done, add the above three ingredients
– Saute for a little bit, maybe break up your kale in between sauteing. Here’s where I should mention that you probably won’t need that entire thing of kale. Two or three leaves should be plenty.
– Add a can of chicken stock
– Fill that same can up with water and add that too
– Add both cans of beans. I don’t drain them because the bean goop adds to the thickness of the soup, and plus, if I drained them, I’d have one more thing to clean.
– Think maybe you need more liquid, decide you do, and add that second can of chicken stock
– Add the spice blend, crushed red pepper, salt, and black pepper
– Stir, stir, stir, taste, add some more salt, maybe some pepper, stir again
– Let the soup simmer away for awhile, the longer the better
– About 15 minutes before you want to eat, add the kale
– To serve, grate some Parmesan cheese on top, and if you have bread, you can serve that too. Sadly, we didn’t have bread, so there was no dunking for us 🙁

So, there you have it…Go forth and cook! If someone makes it and tells me about it, I might just post another soup recipe here, which you should be very excited about, as I have a large arsenal of fantastic soup recipes stored in the ol‘ noggen.

Note: I didn’t post a picture of the actual cooked soup because, A) chunky soups never photograph looking appetizing, and B) no one’s stuff turns out looking exactly like the picture, which can sometimes be disappointing.