mid-week meal share: lasagna soup

 As I'm typing up this recipe I'm silently weeping to myself thinking about how tomorrow marks the start of the 2016 Winter semester at school. I'm excited and dreadful at the same time.

So this week we made lasagna soup! Brendon said that it's the best one yet but the girls were not the biggest fans. It was a bit spicier than I had anticipated even with the cheese garnish. This is yet another recipe I found on a quick Facebook video. I gathered ingredients from here and I copied the instructions from here. So, on top of my own alterations, some of the ingredients were missing. Obvi.

Cost effective: yes, ~$16 for a large pot that will serve dinner and plenty of leftovers!
Easy to concoct: absolutely.
Nutritious: I'm going with yes on this one.

Grab a pen and paper or your handy-dandy cell phone to jot down a list of ingredients; some of which are altered as I've warned you already.

And heads up, these photos are uggo buggo seeing as the sun had already set by the time I started dinner. Fuck it, it still tasted great! :) (How I wish I could emoji's, qwerty smiley's don't really cut it anymore)

 1½ pounds ground Italian sausage

3 cups chopped onion (I used 1 cup of cooked onion)

4 cloves (2 tsp) minced garlic
2 bay leaves

2 tsp dried oregano (I used Italian seasoning as per usual)
2 tbsp tomato paste

28 oz petite diced tomatoes

6 cups chicken stock

8 oz pasta (fusilli per recipe, ditalini per me)

*½ tsp crushed red pepper flakes

*½ cup finely chopped basil

8 oz ricotta

½ cup Parmesan cheese

pinch of pepper
shredded mozzarella

First off: the fact that bay leaves came with a shaker lid really cracked me up.

Second off: if you know me, you know that I despise onions besides in a few exceptional forms. 3 cups of onion seems like too much onion even if you like them so I used only 1 cup and sauteed them first.

1. Since I love pasta, I used an entire box vs the 8 oz that the recipe called for. I didn't want to compromise the broth, so I cooked the pasta ahead of time instead of cooking it in the broth.

2. In a large pan heat your Italian sausage until brown. The instructions say, "not necessary to use oil since the sausage gives off enough fat of it's own." They don't go further to say whether or not to drain the grease.. we drained out most because there was a lot, but left some just to be safe.

 3. Once sausage is cooked add in your onions and garlic and cook for five minutes, or until the onions are soft.

4. Stir in the oregano (Italian seasoning), tomato paste, and crushed red peppers* until evenly covered.

5. Trip over Piper because she's dumping out a cup of Cheez-It's and sorting them into another bowl.

 6. Stir in the diced tomatoes, bay leaves, and chicken stock and simmer on medium-low for approximately 30 minutes.

 7. While this is cooking, mix together the ricotta, parmesan, and pepper.

8. If you chose to cook the noodles per the recipe, you'll want to add them to the broth now and cook on high for 8-10 minutes.

9. If you cooked the noodles separately, add them in now and cook until heated through. And attempt to take an artsy cooking picture with the bay leaves you fished out.

 10. Scoop generously into a bowl, add some cheese and basil* on top, and ENJOY!

Oh my gosh, you guys. Soooooooooooooooooooooooooo delicious. Brendon and I absolutely loved it. The girls.. not so much. Surprisingly Piper didn't want much to do with it, and Kennedy complained that it was too spicy which at the time of serving I didn't notice, but when I warmed it up again, I did. The second time around I didn't have any of the ricotta-parmesan-mozzarella topping which could have played a role.

Bahahahahahaa. Everything about this picture screams white trash. I can't. Haha.

She graced us with her presence all the way from Kansas to let me know she thought this meal was crap.

The absolute only thing I would have changed was to save pasta on the side instead of mixing it in all together. When I re-heated the leftovers the noodles had absorbed so much of the broth. It was still yummy, but it was more like goulash instead of soup. This one will definitely be saved and used many times in the future.



I don't want to go to school tomorrow!
Leia