Family Favorite Recipe:: Italian Sausage Soup

I always love hearing other families' favorite recipes--not just the ones that they made once or twice and really enjoyed, but the favorites that are all crinkled and splattered in their cookbooks, that get requested over and over again, and that everybody just loves. Those are the ones I'm the most interested in adding to my collection, because you know they must be well-loved for a reason! So I thought I'd share one of my family's favorite recipes--a chunky and delicious Italian Sausage Soup.

I've had this recipe for a few years and was ready to say that I don't know where it came from, until I googled it and, what do you know, there it is with over 1000 reviews on allrecipes . . . so I'm guessing that's where I got it from (can 1118 people really be wrong?) (well, yes, but not about this soup). We love it--it's a little spicy, a little sweet, really flavorful, and full of healthy veggies. It's probably more of a fall recipe, but I wouldn't turn down a bowl anytime (you can take that as an invite to pop by my place anytime and whip up a pot of this for me).

This picture certainly doesn't do this soup justice, but it's all I've got:

Even my husband, who insists that soup is not a meal, loves and requests this dish. And Forrest?

Forrest devoured it. I think he ended up eating more of it than Jeff and I combined. So I'm going to go ahead and give it a gold star for being kid-friendly. Toss in some garlicky breadsticks as a side dish, and this boy was in heaven.

Italian Sausage Soup

(original recipe here)

1 pound mild Italian sausage

1 clove garlic, minced

3 beef bouillon cubes, dissolved in 3 cups water

1 (14.5 ounce) can Italian-style stewed tomatoes

1 cup sliced carrots

1 (14.5 ounce) can Great Northern beans

2 small zucchini, cubed (I like to use one zucchini and one yellow squash)

2 cups spinach, torn

1/4 tsp. ground black pepper

1/4 teaspoon salt

Brown sausage with garlic in a large pot. Add broth, stewed tomatoes, and carrots; season with salt and pepper. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer 15 minutes.

Stir in beans (with liquid from can) and zucchini. Cover, simmer another 15 minutes.

Add spinach, remove from heat, and cover for 5 minutes . . . serve!

We had it for dinner last night and again for lunch today--what probably should have been 3 or 4 days worth of leftovers is long gone by now. Who would have expected the breadsticks to last longer than the healthy soup? Not I. 

What are some of your family's favorite recipes?