Lasagna Soup

In my last post, I promised a recipe that tasted like Chef Boyardee. Here it is: Lasagna Soup from Food Network magazine. This is one of those meaty recipes from Food Network I usually skip because, well, they sound gross. But this one actually appealed to me - and I found the perfect Italian whole wheat pasta for it so I gave it a try.

First, cook 8 oz lasagna noodles. I found these little wavy pasta shapes that were very lasagna-like, or you could just buy actual lasagna sheets and break them into pieces. Mix with a little olive oil (to stop them sticking together) and set aside. In a large pot, heat some olive oil and cook 2 diced onions for 4-5 minutes. Add 3 garlic cloves (sadly I only had one good one, they rest had gone off), 1 tsp dried oregano and 1/2 lb Italian sausage with the casings removed - I used 3 hot sausages and it was more like 2/3 lb. Luckily removing the casings was pretty easy, because it was a little unpleasant. But it means they cook like ground meat, and you break them apart even more with a wooden spoon while it browns, 3-4 minutes.

Stir in 2 Tbsp tomato paste and let it brown a little while stirring, 2 minutes. Stir in 4 cups chicken stock (I used the full sodium kind - luxurious!), 1 cup water and 1 can crushed tomatoes. Uncover and simmer about 10 minutes so it can thicken. Then stir in the pasta, 1/2 cup fresh sliced basil, 1/3 cup grated parmesan cheese, and 1/4 cup cream (I just used milk). Simmer 2 minutes and it's done! I served it as recommended, with ricotta on top.

This was quite the decadent recipe! It was quite spicy, thanks to the hot sausage, but it was salty, meaty, tomatoey, cheesy... no wonder it was fabulous. And yes, it bears an uncanny resemblance (flavour-wise anyway) to Chef Boyardee. Definitely a once-in-awhile recipe for us.