Soup on a Snowy Day

I think you can boil down our Christmas festivities to...eating. We've had soup, chicken, turkey, chili, spaghetti, all manner of starches, and plenty of sugar.

Of course, if you knew what our kitchen looked like, you would know most of this eating has gone on in other people's houses. I think I may have forgotten to mention that less than 12 hours after coming home for his Christmas vacation, my husband decided to have the kitchen remodeled. At first, this just meant taking down the ugly wallpaper border, texturing the few walls we have, and painting.

Within 24 hours of beginning the remodel, it turned into texturing and painting our bathroom, fixing cracks in our bedroom walls then repainting, and having the kitchen cabinets painted inside and out.

Oh, that last detail? That requires putting the entire kitchen into boxes, which are now sitting all around our family room. Thankfully you can still sit on the furniture in there. Except, you'll just be looking at cardboard boxes if you do that.

One and a half more days until the cabinets are cured enough to put the kitchen back together.

I am practically counting the hours.

Can you tell I might be going a little crazy?

And that my husband might have a little bit of a problem with the concept of relaxing on a vacation?

So, amidst all the family holiday activities (aka eating), we've been working on the house...and buying and decorating a Christmas tree at the last minute.

This Christmas holiday is not at all what I imagined it would be. But neither has this entire year been what I imagined it would be.

My imagination is obviously faulty.

Somehow I managed to make a bunch of Italian Sausage Tortellini Soup for the family on Christmas Eve. It probably all worked out because that was between the texturing and the cabinet-painting, with just John in the kitchen painting walls. And what with the unprecedented SNOW we got that day, I think soup was a great call.

I stole this recipe from the Big Mama blog, doubling it for our large family gathering. And making it in crock pots instead of on the stove because it's less time-consuming that way...just chop it all up, cook the meat, throw it in the crock pots, and let it cook. You can compare this recipe to the original to choose which one you prefer, but this is GOOD soup!

Italian Sausage Tortellini Soup

2 pounds sweet chicken Italian sausage, casings removed
2 large onions, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
10 cups beef stock
2/3 cup water
1cup red wine
56 oz. canned diced tomatoes
8 carrots, chopped
1 tsp. dried basil
1 tsp. dried oregano
16 oz. can tomato sauce
5 zucchini, chopped
16 ounces cheese tortellini (mmmm, maybe more like 24 oz.)
2 green bell peppers, chopped
2 tbs. chopped fresh parsley
Grated parmesan cheese for topping

Brown the sausage in a large pot. Drain all the grease except for 1 tablespoon, then add the onions and garlic and sauté for 5 more minutes.

Add all ingredients, except tortellini, to the crock pots. You'll need two big crock pots for this much soup.

Cook tortellini ahead of time according to package directions. Add tortellini to soup about 10 minutes before serving to warm up the pasta in the soup.

Serve with some parmesan cheese. (I forgot about this part, and it tasted good without the cheese, too.)

Serves: about 16 (You can just half the recipe for a normal 6 - 8 serving portion.)