SW: Lasagna Soup

 
Welcome to the Third Annual Soup Week! Soup Week is...oh Friends! There just aren't words for how awesome Soup Week is! And I'm really excited about this year's!

My idea was to feature soups made from dishes that aren't normally soups. (Does that even make sense? I have struggled and struggled, but I can't seem to think of a better way to say that.) For example, today's post is Lasagna Soup. Lasagna, at least to my knowledge, is very rarely a soup. But today's recipe shows that it can be, and I'll hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

I bookmarked this recipe almost a year ago, and I'm just now getting around to actually making it. Sounds crazy, right? But I'm glad I waited. (And you should see my bookmarked recipe list. It's crazy insane.) This is the perfect recipe for Nathan and myself because it has lots of man meat (aka, sausage) and the center of it is CHEESE. (OMG. Did you just swoon a little? I know I did.) I didn't make too many changes to the recipe that I found, which is based on a recipe that she found, which may have been based on a recipe from a book or something? Meaning, this recipe has been around the block. But it's tasty. So go! Do your soup thing! Eat some soup to celebrate the greatest week of the year***!

Oh, and did I mention, at the end of soup week, we'll be having a linky party in case you want to make some soup, post a post, and share it with us Soup Week attendees? Because we will. And it will be awesome. So start thinking up what kind of soup you want to feature!
 

I mostly followed this recipe....
4 hearty servings; 6 not as hearty

Ingredients
For the soup: 

• 1 lb. ground sausage
• 1 yellow onion, cut into quarters (you can chop/dice this if you prefer, but I was running low on time, and we're not huge onion lovers)
• 4 minced garlic cloves
• 2 tsp. dried oregano
• 1 tsp. dried basil
• 2 tbsp. tomato paste
• 1 28 oz. can diced tomatoes
• 6 cups chicken stock
• 8 oz. pasta of your choice (I had bowties.)
• salt and pepper to taste

For the cheese center: 

• 8 oz. ricotta--if you can bring this to room temperature first, even better
• 1/2 cup shredded parmesan cheese

The Cooking and The Assembly

1. Brown sausage in your large soup pot over medium heat. Add onions, then garlic and dry spices. Cook for a minute or so, then add tomato paste and cook another 3-5 minutes. 
2. Add tomatoes and chicken stock, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and allow to simmer for 30 minutes. 
3. Since you've got 30 minutes to kill, why not put on another big pot of water to boil and cook your pasta until al dente?
4. While the pasta is cooking, combine the ricotta and parmesan cheese in a small bowl and add a large spoonful of the cheese center to each bowl. 
5. When pasta is cooked and soup has simmered, spoon pasta over cheese center, then ladle soup over that. Cover with additional cheese if you'd like. (You know I will be.)
6. Eat!

Notes

You could very easily cook the pasta in with the soup, but if you plan on having leftovers (like we did) I strongly recommend cooking and storing it separately because left standing in the soup goodness, it will continue to soak up liquid and get kind of soggy. If you're not planning to have leftovers, by all means! Add it into the soup to save on dishes to wash. In that case, you'll add the pasta after it's simmered at least 25 minutes.

Bringing the ricotta to room temperature is a good idea because there's no cooking of the cheese center. Our first excited bites were a little weird because the cheese center was still cold, and the soup was very very hot.

Yum yum, Soup Week! (And it's only just beginning!)

***Soup Week may not, in fact, be the greatest week of the year, but it definitely ranks up there.