Thursday, March 19, 2009

The Most Amazing Soup Ever

This soup has some sort of name like "Super Foods Soup", but that's kind of lame. Plus, I've changed the recipe so much that it barely resembles the original. Whatever you want to call it, it's awesome. It couldn't be any simpler to make, cooks as fast as it takes to come to a boil, and is even better a day or two later as leftovers. This is the kind of thing to take to a friend who's sick. You'll score major points with it. My son and I are currently mucho sick with bronchitis (both of us) and double ear infections (him) and I know it helped us both feel better when we had it tonight for supper.

INGREDIENTS

1 or 2 cloves garlic, minced
1 small red onion, diced
32 oz. frozen chopped spinach
1 can diced tomatoes, undrained
1 can black beans, drained
1 can corn, drained
32 oz. chicken broth (can substitute water)
1 pkg. (8 slices) pre-cooked sausage (can substitute turkey sausage), roughly chopped
1 pkg. (refrigerated or dried) tortellini, any flavor
salt and pepper

DIRECTIONS
  1. Open and drain canned vegetables
  2. In a large stock pot, saute garlic and onions in a small amount of olive oil
  3. As soon as the garlic and onions are done, add spinach, corn, black beans, tomatoes, chicken broth, sausage, salt and pepper to the stock pot. Stir well
  4. Cover and bring to a boil; add tortellini and stir well
  5. Reduce heat, cover and simmer approximately 20 minutes

This makes A LOT of soup. You'll easily be eating the leftovers for days, but it gets better the longer the flavors boogie together. We love spinach around here, so I use 32 ounces. You could easily halve that and still have plenty of bulk. You could leave out the meat, or do a different pasta, or throw in a bag of shredded cole slaw mix instead of spinach. It's so easy and so quick that there's no trouble making it your own. Enjoy!