My attempt at making a Zuppa Toscana soup a bit healthier. Unfortunately I didn't really measure the ingredients so these are more general guidelines - any amount of the following list will be delicious!
1 cup lentils
4 medium sized potatoes cubed
1 pound of fresh pork sausage (italian sausage removed from casings is more traditional)
1 half chopped white onion
2 tablespoons of minced garlic
1 tablespoon of crushed red pepper flakes (more or less depending on taste)
1 tablespoon of italian seasoning
1 full carton of chicken broth
2 cups of spinach (kale is more traditional, my supermarket's kale didn't look very good so I used spinach)
1/4 cup half and half (I didn't have this so I used fat free milk, it was definitely less rich but less calories too)
salt and pepper to taste
Bring chicken broth to boil and add lentils (rinse them first in a colander), onion, garlic, red pepper flakes, and Italian seasoning and cook for 15 minutes at a low boil. Add potatoes and bring back up to a boil (I had to add a little extra water to cover the potatoes). I cooked my sausage in a pan so I could drain most of the fat out afterwards on some paper towels. The traditional method calls for crumbling the sausage in the boiling broth with the rest of the ingredients until it is cooked through - I really didn't want all that extra fat in my soup though. I added the sausage to my soup after I had cooked and blotted the grease. The soup is done when the potatoes are soft. Turn off the heat and add the spinach (or kale) and stir until the greens are soft. Add the milk (or half and half) last. Serve it up!
**traditionally there are no lentils in this soup...I have recently been in the habit of adding lentils to all my soups to bulk them up by adding fiber and no fat. This is a super filling soup!
These are her YumYum Brownies!
Yes when other people started tweeting I thought it was a waste of time. After all the texts, emails, blog posts, youtube updates, facebook and yes even an oldschool myspace that I rarely ever check who has the time for twitter? If anyone is interested in real time updates, this is me...
Weird. When I saw this question was on the list I thought about all my purses and honestly I'm not "attached" emotionally to any of them. I have several quality handbags that I love to carry and I have several "fun" options for nights out. This is a coin purse that belonged to my grandma. She taught a Sunday school class over forty years ago and a student gave this to her, I remember seeing it my whole life in her handbag. It was one of the many beautiful things that became mine after she passed away. I had it cleaned and it looks new! Now when I travel I use this to carry my jewelry.
