Cooking Week 3: Soups

I may be posting more than once for this cooking week.  My craving for Zuppa Toscana coincided with soup week so I made that for my main post.  I may also try to put together a soup for the boy to take to work, but I may slack off on that.  We'll see. 

Anyways.

Zuppa Toscana is a delicious soup at Olive Garden with some kale, sausage, potatoes, and bacon.  Its got a bit of cream to it, but it isn't too heavy.  I tried copycat recipe for it and it turned out great! 

I found the recipe here and followed most of the directions of the first comment shown. 

Pictured with a slice of delicious homemade wheat bread.

• 1 lb hot  Italian sausage
• 3 large russet baking potatoes , sliced 1/4 inch slices then quartered
• 1 small onion , chopped
• 3 strips bacon
•  2 garlic cloves , minced
• 3 cups kale, chopped
• 32 oz. chicken broth
• 2.5 cups water
• 1 1/4 cups half and half 

Brown Italian sausage in skillet.  If you have links, just squeeze the innards out of the casing to do so. Put into stockpot when done.

In same skillet cook bacon and shopped onion side by side.  (or on top of one another like I did)

Add onions, kale, garlic, potatoes, broth, and water to stockpot.  Chop bacon and add as well. 

Cook over medium-high heat for 30 minutes.  Add half and half and cook for another 15-20 minutes making sure to stir well.  If when you first taste it you can taste too much of the half and half mix it up and let it blend a bit more. 

My first bite I could definitely taste the half and half so I loaded it up with garlic salt and mixed it up a bit more and then it tasted exactly like Olive Garden soup. 

It was definitely an overall win.