OLIVE GARDEN'S ZUPPA TOSCANA SOUP // RECIPE

On one of many Thursday night dinners in Raleigh, a friend taught me to make the delicious Olive Garden Zuppa Toscana Soup. As a sausage, potato and kale soup it makes a pretty awesome dinner, so this weekend I lugged out the cast iron dutch oven. You know, the one Adam found at the scrap yard for 3 bucks and we whipped or should I say scraped into shape. Oh, how I love that cheap ole salvaged thing. I call this recipe Zuppa Toscana-Dana, aka. my very own version of Tuscan Soup.

Zuppa Toscana-Dana

Please note this recipe is very specific, follow it to a “t” or your soup with be awful.**

2 onions

2 cloves of garlic

1 thing of sausage

Cook all ingredients together in the bottom of your dutch oven until practically done. If you don’t love onions and sausage as much as Adam does, than add half the amount. I doubled up to make my man happy and because I added mushrooms. Mushrooms are not his favorite.

Add 6 cups of water (or until pot is practically full), 6+ large mushrooms, 8+ leaves of kale, 1+ potatoes. Boil on low until the potato is soft or you can’t stand waiting anymore!

**Please note my above note is a joke, as I hope you can see by my quantities and directions above. I’ve stated before that I cook not based on recipes, but how it looks, smells, and tastes. I suck at baking for this reason and nothing ever turns out the same. For some recipes this can be disastrous, I know, but for most it’s quite refreshing and for soups it’s awesome! Please don’t be afraid to try cooking this soup because I didn’t provide specific quantities. Ask questions if you have them. But most of all, trust me, you can’t mess this one up. I mean come on, it’s got sausage in it. Try it. Enjoy it. Let go. Love it.

I cook much like I live, loosely defined by numbers and way outside the box. 

P.S. My kale came from the CSA Somerset Farm. Check them out. It was yummy!