Zuppa Toscana

Nothing better on a cold, cloudy day than a large bowl of steaming hot soup. This is a tweaked recipe, tried and true from none other than Olive Garden's repository of goodies: Zuppa Toscana. Love this the first time I tried it during an all you can eat Soup Salad and Breadsticks meal. My sisters and I can get full from just the breadsticks and soups, sans salad as we're not salad people. We can pack away at least three bowlfuls each in one sitting, liberally sprinkled with freshly grated parmesan.

Finding something my sisters and I all like can be rare. So in those rare occasions, I like to recreate them at home and as with most homemade creations, they turn out much better than the restaurant versions. I love to tweak recipes and I'm a slap and dash cooker, too lazy to measure most things, adjusting according to taste memory. Original recipe calls for kale, but having younger sisters with less adventurous tastes, they prefer spinach to kale.

Zuppa Toscana

- 1 lb. sweet/hot Italian sausage combination
- as many red potatoes as you like
- 1 medium onion
- 3 cloves garlic minced
- 1/3lb bacon
- water
- 1/2 pint heavy cream
- chicken bouillon
- bag baby spinach (rinsed) or bunch of kale (cut off stems and just use the leafy greens)

Cook the bacon in a heavy soup pot, put aside bacon. Peel the Italian sausages and roll into bite sized pieces, brown in the bacon grease. Halve each of the potatoes and slice thinly. Add potatoes to pot, flavor with salt, pepper and hot red pepper flakes.  Add onions and garlic until onions are translucent. Add water to deglaze pot, add bouillon, and cream. Simmer until potatoes are tender and cooked through. Add spinach. Serve with chopped bacon and a liberal sprinkling of freshly grated parmigiano reggiano. Eat with a side of sliced baguettes fresh from your local bakery.