merlinofchaos | We just went shopping and I don't know what to make for dinner...

But I can make stuff up.

To be fair,

esmerel and her mom went shopping. I worked.

Five o'clock rolled around and it came time to figure out what dinner was going to be. I didn't feel like spending a bunch of time and energy cooking, but everything I could think of required an hour or so of prep.

But we did get some Italian sausages at costco, and we had some potatoes.

I found this italian sausage soup recipe on a websearch. Now, I kind of liked the look of this recipe, but it turned out that I had almost none of what that recipe required. On the other hand,a fter reading the first comment, I decided I could get away with it. This is what I actually made:

6 Italian sausages
3 fist-sized potatoes, cut into pieces.
2 heaping tablespoons of minced garlic (probably about 4 crushed cloves)
some random carrots I found in the freezer
1/2 package frozen chopped spinach
1 package soup noodles (the really cheap stuff)
4 or so cups of beef broth
4 or so cups of water
something like a third of a cup each of small red beans and red kidney beans
I wish I had an onion, or better, a hand full of scallions!s
1/2 tsp black pepper
A couple shakes of white pepper
3-4 pinches kosher salt -- 'to taste'.
1/2 tbs sweet french basil
1/2 tbs oregano

After raiding the shopping, I had a 'yellow' potato and a couple of yukon golds from the farmer's market, but because

esmerel had no idea what I was going to want to cook this week, we didn't have any other vegetables. In retrospect, I'm glad; most of the veggies I would've put in there would not have added much to the texture, I think, though the carrots were ok. I didn't have a lot of them, so they were pretty much lost in the potatoes and beans.

While the end result was much better because the beans were uncooked, it also took a lot longer since it takes an hour or so to prepare beans. Luckily these were fresh or it would've taken longer. So I put the beans in water, set them to simmer, and let them go for 45 minutes.

When that was up, I got out the stock pot, turned the sausages into little bits and sauteed them with the garlic. When they were about half done, I added the potatoes so they could soak up all of the sausage oil. In retrospect, I should've added salt directly to the potatoes first. That said, they were delicious anyhow.

It's hard to say how much beef broth I actually used; I get this soup base stuff at Costco, and I put in a bit more than was needed to produce a quart of stock, and then put in at least two quarts of water, but I am honestly not sure how many times I filled the 2 cup measuring glass. 4. Maybe 5. It seemed like enough.

Then I added the seasonings, and let it simmer 15 minutes. This is the point where I was very careful -- yukon golds are not as wussy as idaho potatoes, but they're not a solid wax potato, and I was very concerned about overcooking the potatoes and turning them into mush. So keep a close eye on how done the potatoes are. You want them good and soft but NOT mush. This is soup, not mashed potatoes!

Then I added the soup noodles, drained the beans and added those; got it back to a simmer, let it go for 10 minutes and killed the heat.

Here's where I added the salt, a pinch at a time, stir, taste, until it tasted 'right'. I think I ended up with 4 pinches. I probably do 1/2 tsp per pinch, roughly.

Then I added the frozen spinach, stirred, and let it sit for 5 minutes, which was plenty enough to cook the spinach without destroying it. A full package would've been nicer, but the spinach is really just an accent.

Served in bowls, this turned out to be much, much better than I really thought it was going to be. We had toast with it; other than knowing it would've been a little better with some scallions,
perhaps a bit more pepper would've given it more zing, but it didn't need it. Salting the potatoes before adding them would've been good for the potatoes, but it didn't really need it either.

I'm definitely keeping this recipe in my repertoire; if I can get the beans going in the afternoon, actually preparing the soup is not that much effort, and it's quite filling, tasty, and it's pretty different from everything else I cook.