Zuppa Toscana

Zuppa Toscana

Kale and potatoes have been a bit of a theme in our household lately, primarily because we keep getting them in our CSA box.

Not that I’m complaining.

Way back in my college days, when (dare I admit it?!) Son and I mainly subsisted on $1 microwave dinners and Olive Garden was our idea of fancy, I tried Zuppa Toscana (at Olive Garden, of course) for the first time and immediately fell in love.

However at that time, I didn’t really cook, except to pretend I knew how to make sushi and fail at apple pies. So this soup love remained on my mind’s backburners (pun totally intended) for the next 7 years.

Until now! An excess of kale meant I needed to figure out something to do with all of it. Luckily for me, I had bookmarked this Olive Garden copycat Zuppa Toscana recipe that Angie posted on her blog Eclectic Recipes almost two years ago. Doubly awesome, I had practically all of the ingredients (or close-enough substitutions) on hand.

I made a few “changes” to the recipe based on the ingredients I had: I used sliced chicken and apple sausage instead of the hot Italian sausage; I about doubled the amount of bacon (because, bacon!); I only used 3 cups of kale (that’s all I had); I used whole Lactaid milk instead of the cream (because lactose intolerance is more fun when you don’t have to worry about it.)

My way was quite delicious (also, breakfast the next morning), and I’m quite positive that if I’d stuck to the ingredients she listed it would have been just as wonderful! It’s a very comforting dish – perfect for the cooling fall weather (unless you’re here in LA, where we’re getting 80-degree weather right now 😛 ).

Find the Zuppa Toscana recipe on Eclectic Recipes!