Soup for the Soul - my style!

It's still winter and a hot bowl of soup can do much for the soul....and the stomach! So the featured recipe for February is no less than my favorite soup. I'm sure you'll recognize it by taste if you've ever eaten at Olive Garden. Of course and as always, this is my version of the recipe.

SAUSAGE, POTATO, & SPINACH SOUP (aka Zuppa T0scana)

Makes about 4 good-sized servings

2 to 3 large red potatoes
Salt and pepper
Cold water
6 oz. Jimmy Dean’s Italian Sausage, (1/3rd of a 1 lb. tube)
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 small onion or half of a large onion, finely diced
1 large garlic clove, finely minced
1 tsp dry basil flakes
1 tsp dry parsley flakes
1/3 cup flour
14 oz can chicken broth
1 chicken bouillon cube
fresh baby spinach, roughly chopped (3 good handfuls or so. fresh kale may also be used)
1/4 to 1/2 cup heavy cream - no substitutes

DIRECTIONS:
Scrub potatoes well – don’t peel. Slice potatoes in half length wise, turn the flat side of each half onto the cutting board and slice the half into half again lengthwise, then slice horizontally in 1/8th to 1/4th inch increments. Place the sliced potatoes in a small 1 quart sauce pan, fill pan with cold water to cover the top of the potatoes, season with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low, cover pan and simmer 7 minutes (set a timer)– check with a fork to make sure they’re just barely tender. Turn heat off pan and set aside.

While potatoes are boiling: Set a larger sauce pan (2 quart size) on low heat. Prepare onion and garlic. Crumble Italian sausage into hot pan, add the olive oil, onion, garlic, basil, and parsley and sauté together, stirring well to break up the sausage into small pieces (divide and freeze the rest of the sausage for the next batches, or use more sausage according to your taste). When the sausage is cooked through and the onions are translucent, sprinkle the flour over the meat and stir to coat (if you like a thicker broth, use more flour). Add the chicken broth and bouillon cube to the meat, and bring to a boil over medium-low heat - just long enough to dissolve the bouillon cube, meantime roughly cut up the baby spinach into large pieces; add the spinach to the soup. Pour the entire contents of the small pan (potatoes and liquid) into the soup and simmer until the spinach has wilted and cooked, about 10 minutes (boiling the spinach for a long time will cause it to loose it’s vibrant green color.) If the soup does not have enough broth – add a little more water to thin it out. Just before serving, pour in some cream, a splash at a time, until it is creamy enough for your taste. (Cream equals fat, so to keep it “lite” don’t use too much, just enough to make it look creamy.) Taste the soup for salt and pepper and adjust seasoning to your taste.

Serve with French bread or fresh rolls.



Kitchen Tip - February
Seperate meat into usable portions before freezing. For ground beef: use zip-top bags, squishing the meat into flat square disks before freezing. When you decide an hour before dinner time that you'll be using ground beef as an ingredient, all you have to do is fill your sink with some water and place the frozen beef square in the water to defrost. Because the meat is in a thin layer, the defrost time will be extra fast and ready to use!

Buon Appetito! ~ J.