Baby, it's cold outside - the high for today is supposed to be 16 degrees! Here is a hearty soup to get you through the winter. This soup, along with a green salad and some nice bread, is a great dinner for a chilly night.  This soup is loaded with sausage, beans and ditalini pasta.  It's really a pretty traditional "Pasta e Fagioli" soup, but with sausage. I've made the soup with turkey sausage, but you can use any sausage you like.  

I've used dried beans to make the soup.  You can certainly use canned, but if you've never cooked with dried beans, you should try it.  Some people are confused about dried beans and don't know how to soak them and cook them.  But there really is no mystery to it at all - it's very easy.  Soaking simply softens the beans so that they have a shorter cooking time.  That's all.  And you don't really even have to soak them.  If you forget to soak them, simply cook them longer.  I just throw the beans in a pot and cover them with water and let them soak all day. I drain them, add fresh water and then cook them until they are tender. That's it. And I get my beans from Steve Sando at Rancho Gordo.  He produces the best dried beans on the market today.  If you are interested in cooking more with beans, check out the great cookbook he wrote last year, Heirloom Beans, filled with terrific recipes using beans and lots of tips on how to cook with beans.

Sausage and Bean Soup with Pasta

serves 6 or more

for a printable recipe, click here

1 cup dried cannellini or cellini beans or 1 15-ounce can of any beans you like, drained
1 pound ground sausage, turkey or pork
1/2 medium onion, diced
1/2 medium carrot, diced
3 tablespoons olive oil 
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 15-ounce can diced tomatoes 
6 to 8 cups chicken broth
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 bay leaf
salt and pepper 
1 cup ditalini pasta, or any small pasta
grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese 

If using dried beans, place them in a pot, cover with cold water and let soak for several hours or overnight. Drain.

In a large pot, brown the sausage.  Remove from pot.  If there is a lot of fat left in the pot, pour this out but do not wipe out pot.  Add onion, carrot and olive oil and saute for 2-3 minutes until soft.  Add garlic and saute about a minute more.  Add the tomatoes, 6 cups of the chicken broth, thyme, bay leaf, some salt and pepper, the drained beans and the sausage and cover the pot. Cook for an hour over low heat, at a gentle simmer.

If using dried beans, check for doneness at this point.  (If using canned beans, add the pasta now.)  If the beans are not soft enough, cover the pot again and cook for another 30 minutes or until the beans are soft. Add the pasta and cook, uncovered, until the pasta is tender.  Check the seasoning and add more salt and pepper to taste.  If the soup is too thick for your liking, you can add more chicken broth.

Serve with grated cheese on top and an extra drizzle of olive oil.

Variation:  You can add a couple of handfuls of fresh chopped greens like spinach, chard, etc. for the last 15 or 20 minutes of cooking time if you like.

I've been asked by Mel to guest post over at Bouchon for Two while she is traveling around Europe, so hop on over there for the entire post and recipe for this delicious and simple traditional Tuscan soup.   

Pappa di Pomodoro was originally a way to use up stale bread – in the Tuscan kitchen, nothing goes to waste.  When I was growing up, it was also a way to use slightly overripe tomatoes – the ones you’re thinking maybe wouldn’t be so great to slice into a sandwich.  So this Is a very practical dish.  “Pappa” means mush, but don’t let that fool you – it’s delicious.  Now you can find this “peasant” dish in upscale restaurants in Florence.  People love this kind of comfort food. 

If you don’t have stale bread, you can take bread, cube it, place it on a baking sheet and just bake it at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes, until it is dried out.  I used a hearty whole wheat bread, which makes this soup a perfectly healthy dish – garlic, olive oil, tomato, whole grain – with a green salad, it is a great lunch or dinner!  I also used half beef broth and half chicken broth for the stock, a little trick I learned from Giuliano Hazan, when you don’t want the heaviness of a full beef broth.

Pappa di Pomodoro

This is a really simple soup, but you won't believe how delicious it is. I had made it and photographed it, but never posted it. Then I read the latest post from Cookiecrumb over at "I'm Mad and I Eat" and I had to post this. She's been pulling out her old cauliflower and broccoli plants (sigh - she lives in California. That's why her plants are already old). Anyway, it made me think of this soup, which is a great thing to make with leftover cauliflower and broccoli. Don't skip the step of roasting the cauliflower - it adds a depth of flavor you don't get otherwise.

1/2 onion, chopped
1/2 large head of cauliflower (or 1 small head), cut into large pieces
1/2 head of broccoli
4 cups chicken broth
couple handfuls of baby spinach
parmesan cheese

On a baking sheet, spread out cauliflower and roast in oven at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes, until cauliflower starts to brown a little.

In a large saucepan, saute onions in a little olive oil for several minutes, until translucent. Add chicken stock, cauliflower and broccoli and simmer, covered, for about 15 minutes. Make sure broccoli is soft. Add spinach and cook for a couple minutes more.

Using an immersion blender, puree soup in pot. (If you don't have one, transfer the soup to a blender and puree. But geez, if you don't have an immersion blender go out and get one right away - they're just too great not to have one).

Serve soup with a little grated parmesan on top.

Buon appetito!