Thursday, May 28, 2009

Rustic Italian Sausage Soup and Pitzas

I had nothing planned for dinner today and looking through the fridge and cabinets was not inspiring.  Note to self: go grocery shopping.

Random Leftover Things Italian soup (or you can use the nice name in the title):

2/3 lb sausage
1 small onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
10 or so baby carrots, chopped
1 large potato, diced
2 tsp or so of Italian type spices (mostly basil and oregano with thyme, sage, and marjoram)
3 cups liquid (I did about half chicken broth, half water)
1 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes
1 can kidney beans

Throw the onion, garlic and sausage into a pan and cook until onions are mostly done.  Add in the baby carrots, potato and spices.  Stir it around a few minutes more. 



Then add the liquid, tomatoes and beans.  Bring to a boil and cook until the carrots and potatoes are done.

I used Turkey Polska Kielbasa since my kids love it and we usually have some around.  I think this would probably be better with a real sausage and no casing.  I thought it was a bit like putting hot dogs in soup (c'mon, admit it, that's what you thought when you saw that picture up above!), but everyone else liked it.  I'd also probably replace the kidney beans with white beans, but that's just me not liking the size of kidney beans even though the flavor was good. This soup was quick, cheap and everyone but Owen ate it up.  Claire was scary with how much and how fast she was eating.



We also made Pitzas.  Claire inhaled those, too as you can see.  The kids love to do these since it's so hands on and fun for them.  Just take pita bread, add some type of sauce (Ragu in our case--so fancy!) and sprinkle the cheese on top.  Sometimes we'll do these and the kids get to choose their own toppings, but tonight was just cheese.  Then throw them in the oven under the broiler until the cheese is good and melty and serve.   The soup wasn't as kid friendly for my little helpers, but the pitzas made up for that in their opinion.   I did let Owen use a plastic knife and slice the sausage.  That took all kinds of soap afterwards since ew, yuck, my baby touched meat! but he was so incredibly proud.  He even had an opinion on how to pose for a photo and which photo to put on here.  We disagree on that one, so I'm putting up thumbnails of both and you can choose your favorite.

    

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