Italian Soup

You might think it could have been difficult for me to pick the first recipe I wanted to share..... Well, it wasn't. This recipe cannot be found in a can, you can't select it at The Olive Garden, & I've never actually had this made for me at any friend's house or restaurant. It's one of a kind :)

Okay, so circa 1990s, in the Zion church cookbook "The Italian Soup" recipe was submitted for my eating pleasure. Here it is for you in it's original form.

1 lb mild Italian sausage

1 chopped onion

1  medium chopped green pepper

4 C tomatoes, cut up

3 C tomato sauce

2 QT water

3 cubes chicken bouillon or 1 T granulated version

3/4 t garlic salt
3/4 C shell macaroni

Brown sausage, green pepper and onion. Drain. Stir in remaining ingredients except macaroni. Cover and simmer 15 minutes, stir in macaroni. Cover and simmer 10-12 minutes or until macaroni is tender. Top with cheese.

Okay here's my spin....
1 buy canned tomatoes because I'm lazy.

1 use garlic powder instead of garlic salt.
I add at least a cup of shell macaroni. 

I also add a cup of mozzarella to the actual soup and let it melt in. I also top individual servings with mozzarella, too.

I suppose you could use provolone cheese, too. For some reason I've decided to hate provolone as of lately. It's got too smokey of a taste for me.

Why is this soup great!? Because it's super fast to make and it's beyond delicious. If you want to freeze it, don't add the noodles and then freeze it up. Later on, thaw it out and warm it up and add the noodles to it.  Or if you like the taste of frozen noodles, freeze 'em. Personally, I can't stand when noodles are frozen. I've got an experiment going with egg noodles right now because I heard they freeze better than "regular" noodles. We'll see.

So I made this recipe 2 weeks or so ago... Yeah... Um.... I'm pretty sure that I accidentally labeled frozen breakfast sausage as Italian sausage (I like to buy meat when it's on sale and then separate it by the pound in baggies and label it. Mistakes happen!). The taste was off, but the tomato base was so good, I kept eating it! LOL. I'm such a weirdo. Nothing a little more mozzarella can't fix!