Hiiii, it's finally soup season!
You guys KNOW I love me some soup. As soon as there starts to be the faintest chill in the air, I am all IN on soup for dinner (let's be honest, sometimes I make it in the dead of summer. I just love it!)
This soup, like all great soups in my very humble and honest opinion, is so easy to make while also being loaded with different flavors and textures that make it so much more than a basic bowl of soup. With the first freeze of the season happening in New England today, you HAVE to be sure to add this Sausage and Kale Tortellini Soup to your menu.
Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I know you might be thinking...didn't you JUST post a recipe with sausage? What gives? And I would say to you that yes, yes I did. That is kind of sausage overload, but I do really and truly LOVE sausage. However, this wasn't my original schedule of posts. My PLAN was to share a pistachio and chocolate sour cream coffee cake with you all this week. But this, of course, is no cake recipe. In fact, my dreams of a pistachio and chocolate coffee cake are in the garbage after my bundt pan overflowed everywhere and the edges overcooked while the middle stayed raw. It was probably my biggest food fail to date, and it left me bitter towards any and all baked goods. But, when life gets you down, the best thing to do is turn back to what you're good at - for me, that's soup!!
Alright, so. What is it about this soup that makes it stand out among the hundreds of other soup recipes out there on Pinterest? First of all, tortellini. Perfect little stuffed pasta packages swimming in a flavorful broth among some of our favorite vegetables. To compliment the robust flavors in the sausage (which, by the way, I used chicken sausage here - it's a bit more tender than pork sausage, making it better for a soup) I steeped a bouquet garni in the broth while the veggies and pasta cook. This is a simple bundle of rosemary, parsley and sage, but the flavor benefits are out of this world!
I also love wilting in a leafy green to most soups, for flavor, texture and added nutrition, and my grocery store had the most beautiful bunches of kale that I had to scoop up for this. Rachel Ray always suggests adding in a bit of freshly grated nutmeg to really bring out the flavor of kale, so I finished off this soup in that exact way and let me tell you - between the nutmeg and the sage, this soup is filled with all those intoxicating, warming holiday season flavors that make my heart smile!
