Italian Potato Soup

I worked at Olive Garden one summer during college as a hostess. It was a crummy job, but I did get half off meals before or after my shifts. I'm not a big fan of pasta, but mercy me--I love their soup, salad, and breadsticks! My favorite soup is their Zuppa Toscana! This is my copycat recipe (Janelle, you obviously have the same OG soup obsession as I do).

I frequently fry up hot breakfast sausage (the very sophisticated and chic kind from a tube heehee) in the morning for breakfast pizza (sausage crumbles, eggs, cheese, and country gravy instead of pizza sauce) or breakfast burritos (the same ingredients in a tortilla), so I just planned to make them for breakfast and we had the soup for lunch! For Alana, I drained the liquid out of her portion and gave her all the solid items in the soup and she gobbled it up--including the kale (she LOVES anything green).


Italian Potato Soup

Ingredients:

6 slices bacon
3/4 cup onions, diced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 c cooked hot breakfast sausage
2 cups kale leaves, cut in half, then sliced
4 cups chicken stock (you can also use 4 cups of water and 6 chicken bullion cubes, but be sure to omit the salt)
1/4 t salt
3 medium red potatoes, sliced into thin half-moons with the skin left on
1/3 cup half and half


Place bacon in a large saucepan and cook over medium heat until the bacon is crisp. Remove bacon and crumble. Add onions to the same pan and cook until translucent. Add garlic to the onions and cook an additional minute--do NOT burn the garlic, so watch it carefully! Add chicken stock and potatoes and simmer for 15 minutes. Add crumbled bacon, sausage, kale and cream. Simmer 5 minutes and serve.

I served this soup with a crisp salad with tomato wedges and a homemade pesto vinaigrette. For you people who can eat anything you want and still have the body of a supermodel, feel free to add garlic breadsticks. Alas, my body takes the second helping of carbohydrates (the first being the potatoes in the soup) and places them directly on my already rotund stomach! " )