Sausage Tortellini Soup

Sausage Tortellini Soup - made September 17, 2021 from The Cozy Cook

1 pound ground sausage, hot or mild

1 small yellow onion, diced

3 cloves garlic, minced

3 tablespoons flour

1 teaspoon dried basil

1/2 teaspoon oregano

1 pinch cayenne, optional

1 teaspoon hot sauce

1/2 teaspoon mustard powder

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1 cup heavy cream

5 cups chicken broth

2 cups kale (I used spinach)

2 cups refrigerated tortellini (10 ounces) 

salt to taste

1 pinch red pepper flakes

1. Remove the casings from the sausage if you purchased links. In a large pot, add a dash of olive oil then cook and crumble the sausage and diced onions over medium high heat until the onions are softened and the sausage is cooked through, 8-10 minutes. Drain grease. Add garlic and cook for 1 minute.
2. Add the flour and cook for 1-2 minutes to remove the raw flour taste.
3. Add 1 teaspoon dried basil, 1/2 teaspoon oregano, 1 pinch cayenne, 1 teaspoon hot sauce, 1/2 teaspoon mustard powder and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Stir to combine.
4. Add the chicken broth and use a silicone spatula to deglaze the bottom of the pot. Add the heavy cream. Bring to a boil; reduce to a simmer.
5. Add the kale and tortellini and simmer for 3-5 minutes. If your tortellini needs more cooking time, add tortellini first then add the kale during the last 5 minutes. Salt and pepper soup to taste. Serve warm.

I interrupt all the sugar swimming in my system to post a few "real food" recipes. I had a rare day when I "didn't feel like baking". Yes, pigs must've been flying amidst the icicles in hell that day.

Regardless, I had a craving for soup. Technically it wasn't fall yet when I made this recipe. Heck, it wasn't even that cold, although we had started to experience that time of year when the temperature ranged a good 40 degrees between the high and the low temps of the day.

Cooking, for me, is a production. Unlike when I bake where I have a pantryful of ingredients and can bake most things half-asleep, with cooking, I have to plot and plan ahead. Writing down the ingredients I needed (which was almost all of them), making my grocery store runs to Trader Joe's and Costco with a dash to Target, then clearing my schedule for the day to cook. Good thing I'm not working these days so now I have the time for the production known as my cooking efforts in the kitchen.

So I felt inordinately pleased when this recipe turned out. As in, it tasted like I could actually cook. The directions are simple and easy to follow and, did I mention, this was not only edible but also tasty? 

The only substitution I made was to use spinach instead of kale. I don't like kale. I can eat spinach when it's cooked down enough and mingled with enough ingredients that I can't taste it too much and there isn't a lot of it. 

It also helps that you/I can buy fresh tortellini already made (thank you, Trader Joe's) but even the broth was tasty. It reminded me of the zuppa toscana soup from Olive Garden although this was made with tortellini rather than potatoes. 

This is good comfort weather soup. I now have a whole batch of it, portioned out in individual servings in my freezer, for the coming days. I'm looking forward to colder weather. And more soup.