Sunday, December 26, 2010

Zuppa Toscana recipe- Olive Garden copy cat recipe

I love to cook. Really.  Yesterday Mr. Cacoupondiva and I spent the day cooking.  He made blueberry pancakes for breakfast and scrambled eggs, and we made a cherry pie together to take to my parents house for dessert and in the middle of the day we whipped up a big batch of Zuppa Toscana.


I freaking love this stuff, however "all you can eat" for me is about 3 bowls. And my pregnant palate doesn't really like salad, so the all you can eat soup, salad and bread sticks is really not worth it. (it's $7.95 here- I checked the other day, when I was really jonesing for some)

So, the other day I turned to google for a recipe. I made it yesterday and we had it yesterday for lunch, tonight for dinner and I just popped the last 8 cups into the freezer for dinner next week.

I used the recipe here: Olive Garden Zuppa Toscana: Tuscan Soup Recipe made at the restaurant

But I made several changes to make it healthier/more pregnancy palate friendly.

However:
I used Spicy Turkey sausage (italian), garlic powder instead of fresh garlic.
Re-hydrated dehyrdated onion (just pour them into a bowl and pour boiling water over them, when they "puff" up, use them like regular chopped onions).
I used a can of evaporated milk instead of cream- it's better for you and it's what we had.
I just used the potatoes we had in the house, I don't know if they are Russets or not.
Spinach instead of Kale- Kale has a weird texture that ooks me out.
Swanson's low sodium broth instead of buillion cubes and water (it's what we had) + 2 extra cans of water.
I used 2 pepper flake packets left over from when we had ordered pizza last month (those little condiment packages DO come in handy).

It's pretty spicy, especially when it sits overnight, so if you like it less spicy, skip the peppers and use regular Italian Sausage.

I calculated costs and the whole pot of soup (about 12 servings- I used extra sausage and potatoes and a little extra liquid than what the original recipe calls for) and it was approx. $8.00 for the whole pot. Not bad for 3-4 meals.

 

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