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sausage soup

Chicken & Sausage Soup

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Tis the Season. For colds and flu. Always amazes me how one can get sick and the other one can miss it entirely. It was a day where one of the minions was under the weather. When this happens I always make a big batch of chicken soup. Sometimes with noodles. Sometimes with rice. This soup had sausage.

The last time I was in the store I picked up a couple fresh links of Spolumbo’s Chicken & Apple Sausage. I had the intention of making a soup or stew with it one day and this was going to be the day. Just so happens we had leftover roasted chicken in the fridge and so the union was meant to be. Rummaged around for some chicken soup vegetables, grabbed some broth and a Chicken & Sausage Soup was born. I always use some form of broth in my soup since it adds so much flavour.

Everyone loved it and it didn’t take very long to make. It was so comforting to have a bowl of hot steaming soup on a cold Calgary day and a pimped up version of chicken soup. Here are the particulars.

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Chicken & Sausage Soup
Author: 
Recipe type: Soup, Dinner, Entree, Lunch, Main,
Serves: 6
 
Ingredients
  • 2 (300kg) chicken sausage links
  • 1 cup roasted chicken, cut up
  • 1 onion, diced
  • 1 cup carrots, diced
  • 1 cup celery, diced
  • 1 tsp thyme
  • 8 cups chicken stock
  • 2 tbsp fresh parsley
  • salt and pepper
  • olive oil
Instructions
  1. In a saucepan over medium heat add a small glugg of olive oil.
  2. Remove sausage from casing and drop in to hot pan. Use a potato masher to break up sausage into smaller pieces. Cook until pink is gone.
  3. Add onions, carrots and celery into pan with sausage. Drop heat to low and cook for 5-10 minutes or until vegetables start to soften slightly. Add in thyme.
  4. Pour in stock, add chicken and bring soup to a boil. Drop down to a simmer. Sprinkle in a pinch of salt and pepper and parsley.
  5. Simmer for another 15-20 minutes to ensure vegetables soft.
  6. Serve with fresh buns or crusty rolls.

 

Shredded Brussels Sprout & Sausage Soup

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As I was making this soup last night I was reminded of a pasta I used to make back in the early 1990’s. Back then I worked with a great group of people, in the hair industry, and we would have these fabulous potlucks or gatherings. Inspiration came from everywhere those days and really enhanced my food aspirations.

The 1990 pasta had a base of onions, garlic and sausage. The other ingredients I added were based on what I had available. Always finished with a sprinkling of freshly grated Asiago Cheese. My mom posted this pasta recipe in her community cookbook back in the 1990’s. I think it’s time to revive this pasta dish and share it since the smell of the onion, garlic and sausage brought me back to another time and place reminding me why it was so good.

Back to the soup. We love and adore a locally made sausage called Spolumbo’s Sausage. No binders and no fillers and very delicious. So much so we had it for our rehearsal dinner BBQ, the night before our wedding many moons ago. Spolumbo’s Sausage & Deli is a labour of love between brothers Tom Spoletini, former Lineman for the Calgary Stampeders, Tony Spoletini, former Fullback for the Calgary Stampeders, and Mike Palumbo, also a former CFL football player and Offensive Lineman. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Tony in the past during one of the many outdoor BBQ and community events Spolumbo’s has been involved in. They have a large variety of sausages to choose from, some that are made with 100% Alberta Pork and admittedly, we eat our fair share every month.

Some days recipes come from rummaging through the fridge, and last night’s soup was one of those experiments that became soup a la whatever I have in the fridge. I decided to toss in some thinly sliced brussels sprouts mid simmer. Then serve the soup topped with fresh chopped parsley tossed with more thinly sliced brussels sprouts. Parmesan cheese rounded it out.

To get the kids interested I added some precooked Alphabet pasta. It worked. They only picked out the bigger pieces of tomatoes. I was even able to sell the shredded brussels sprouts as celery..heh heh heh. They loved it.

A lovely Fall/Winter soup full of flavour. Use your favourite sausage, or seek out some Spolumbo’s and find out why we love it so much.

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Shredded Brussels Sprout & Sausage Soup
Author: 
Recipe type: Soup, Lunch, Dinner
Serves: 6
 
Ingredients
  • ½ cup onion, chopped
  • 2 large uncooked sausages, casing removed
  • 2 garlic cloves, minced
  • 1 cup carrots, chopped
  • 6 cups beef broth
  • 1 16oz can whole tomatoes
  • ½ cup fresh brussel sprouts, sliced thin
  • ¼ tsp thyme
  • 1 cup white kidney beans
  • salt and pepper
  • Parmesan6 cheese
  • olive oil
  • Alphabet Pasta, cooked
  • ¼ cup parsley, chopped
  • ½ cup brussel sprouts, sliced thin
Instructions
  1. In a skillet over medium heat, pour in a glug of olive oil and your onions. Cook onions until almost translucent.
  2. Add garlic and cook for another minute then add sausage breaking it up as you drop it into the pan. Use a potato masher to help get the bigger chunks broken up. Add carrots. Cook until sausage has a nice brown on it.
  3. Pour in beef broth and tomatoes, breaking up tomatoes as you go. Season with thyme and a pinch of salt and pepper. Turn up heat and bring to a boil.
  4. Once boiling turn down to simmer, add beans and brussel sprouts. Test for seasoning and add more salt and pepper if needed.
  5. Simmer for about 30 minutes.
  6. To serve spoon some pasta into a bowl and ladle some piping hot soup over top. Mix together parsley and ½ cup brussel sprouts and place a little on top of soup. Finish with a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese.