Italian Sausage and Harvest Vegetable Soup

Variety is the spice of life, as they say. Because of that, we wandered back to The Fresh Market & Friends Cookbook. We had tried the Smoky Corn Risotto and it was very good. So we ventured to the Italian Sausage & Harvest Vegetable Soup recipe.

First we took 1/2 pound of ground Italian sausage and rolled them into small meatballs.


Then in a stock pot, we cooked those and 2 diced onions in 2 tablespoons of olive oil (the reciped called for onion wedges).

After about 10 minutes, add 1 minced garlic clove, 1 tablespoon fresh rosemary, 1 tablespoon fresh thyme, 6 chopped carrots, 3 peeled and cubed baking potatoes, 3 cups chopped tomatoes and 2 cups chicken broth. (The recipe called for just one cup, but with the amount of veggies we piled in, we saw a second cup was needed.)


Then we let that boil slowly and the covered and simmered for 45 minutes. At the end, we seasoned with salt and pepper and garnished with shopped parsley.


The result was a big, hearty winter soup dish that will melt any heart. The sausage that we used was quite flavorful and packed a very nice punch. The potatoes turned out just a bit overcooked, but fine for my tastes; Melissa found them a bit more harsh because of that.