Zuppa Toscana

This post will hopefully convince Arizona's weather to turn fall-y so I can enjoy incredible soups like this WITHOUT running the air conditioning!

Whenever I go to Olive Garden, I always have to get this soup. It's so insanely fantastically delicious. Several years ago, I had a wicked craving for this soup but couldn't go get my Olive Garden fix. I decided to look it up online. I wasn't expecting to find a recipe nearly as good, but I found one! I love it even more, because it costs way less to make and I get several meals of this soup instead of just a single bowl.

The only problem I had with this recipe was that the original said you can use spinach or kale. The very first time I made it, I used spinach. It. was. disgusting. The spinach got completely slimy in the soup and didn't hold up well at all for leftovers. So do NOT use spinach as a substitution. It's gotta be kale.

Now that I'm on blood thinner medication, I have to be super careful about eating foods high in Vitamin K. When the pharmacist tole me that kale has the highest Vitamin K out of any of the dark greens, my mind instantly started mourning the fact that I won't be able to eat this soup as much as I normally do in the winter. Well, as much as I used to eat it in the winter, before I moved to the gosh dang desert.

Ingredients:
1 pound hot style bulk sausage
1 1/4 teaspoons crushed red pepper flakes
4 slices bacon, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
1 large onion, diced
1 tablespoon garlic, minced
5 cans chicken broth
6 potatoes, cubed
1 cup heavy cream
1/4 bunch kale

Cook sausage and red pepper flakes. Drain excess fat and remove sausage from pan. Using the same pan, cook bacon. Remove bacon, leaving a few tablespoons of drippings in the pan. Cook onion and garlic in bacon drippings until tender. Add chicken broth and potatoes. Cook for 20 minutes. Reduce heat to medium, then add cream and sausage. Simmer for 10 minutes. Stir in kale just before serving. Serve with rolls or breadsticks!

What's your favorite soup?

Chili's Chicken Enchilada Soup

This soup is one of my favorites of all time. When we moved away to go to college in 2004, our new tiny town didn't have a Chili's, and I was so bummed. Every time we went home to visit, which was pretty often because we were only an hour and a half away, I'd always make sure I went to Chili's to get a bowl of soup to tie me over until next time.

Then, one day, I realized, DUH! I can find the recipe online and can make it at home! Wow, I'm smart. I couldn't find the exact recipe, but I found a few that gave me some good places to start, and then I tweaked it to make it a pretty darn good replica, if I do say so myself.

Each recipe I found for this soup used an ingredient I'd never heard of before, Masa Harina. So to spare you the temporary anxiety I had from not knowing what this ingredient was, let alone where to find it: it's a Mexican flour found in the baking section of your grocery store, and it's used to make tortillas, tamales and the like.


You can really use whatever you have on hand in this recipe. If I have cans of broth and enchilada sauce, I use that. But most of the time, I just use bouillon cubes and packaged enchilada sauce (both prepared according to package directions). It tastes fantastic either way. If you use bouillon cubes, though, use a little less salt than the recipe calls for. Those are much saltier than canned broths.

This makes a huge pot of soup. I made it the other night for my family of 5, and we all had 2 bowls, plus we all had some for lunch the next day, and I still have at least 1 more bowl's worth in my fridge. But it's so good that you won't mind eating it for like 3 days straight or longer. Oh, yum, now I know what I'm having for lunch!

Ingredients:
1 pound chicken breasts, cooked and diced or shredded
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup diced onion
2 cloves garlic, minced
4 cups chicken broth
1 cup Masa Harina
3 cups water
3 cups enchilada sauce
16 ounces Velveeta, cubed
1 tablespoon salt
1/2 tablespoon cumin
1 tablespoon chili powder

Garnish (pick and choose from this list -- they're all great!):
tortilla chips, crushed
cheddar cheese, shredded

AND/OR:
salsa
tomatoes, sliced or diced
avocado, sliced or diced
pico de gallo
red onion, diced
green onions, diced

Melt butter in a large soup pot over medium-low heat. Saute onions and garlic until onions are tender, about 3 minutes. Add chicken broth. Combine Masa Harina with 2 cups water, and whisk until well-blended. Add to soup. Add remaining water, enchilada sauce, Velveeta, chicken and spices. Bring to a boil and simmer for 30 minutes, or until thick.