Sausage Soup

Or, What's Left in my Refrigerator.

So, the picture above is from Deb at Smitten Kitchen, last night I made a version of a soup she had posted a while back. Of course, I had about none of the ingredients I was supposed to, so I improvised, but this is a tasty and delicious fall belly-warmer, and I have to say, incredibly easy. Mine didn't really look anything like that photo. :)

Sausage Soup

*1 package Mild Italian Sausage I found in the freezer.

After trying various forms of mangling this sausage, I'd go one of two routes. A. Uncase raw sausage, slice into cubes, brown in the bottom of your soup pot or B. Cook cased sausage in the skillet or bottom of your soup pot and slice into rounds. I chose to sort of half cook the sausage, then mush them into non-slices, then try to brown. Bad choice.

*Several peeled, cubed red potatoes.

I meant to use 7 medium ones, but dropped one in the garbage can while peeling, so used 6 instead. It was just fine.

*Three small yellow onions, chopped

There were, I kid you not, only seven onions left at the store. Apparently, Lakeview is having a big onion rush. There were a few red ones, but I didn't think those were the right flavor for soup.

*Couple of cloves of garlic, chopped.

*6 cups chicken broth

Or, you know, 4 cups broth and 2 cups water. I'm not kidding about the 'whats left in my fridge.'

*1 bag baby spinach

After browning the cased or uncased sausage, transfer sausage pieces to a paper towel to drain. Add a bit of olive oil and saute onions and garlic till soft and translucent. Add broth, potatoes, and some salt and pepper, bring to a boil. Reduce heat to strong simmer, simmer until potatoes are soft. At this point I smashed some of the potatoes up so it was a little stew-ier, I suppose you don't have to. Add sausage back in. Simmer a minute or two. Add spinach, simmer till wilted. That's it!

Sausage Soup