Italian Soup
TUSCAN SUNSET SOUP
INGREDIENTS
FIRST BATCH
2 cups garlic bread
2 garlic cloves
½ avocado
½ green bell pepper
1 7 ounce can red beans
1 7 ounce can pork and beans
1 7 ounce can diced tomatoes
1 15 ounce can condensed tomato soup
15 ounces water
½ cup grated Monterey Jack cheese
½ cup grated Romano cheese
½ teaspoon oregano
½ teaspoon chopped chives
¼ teaspoon coriander
¼ teaspoon parsley flakes
⅛ teaspoon ground mustard
⅛ teaspoon tarragon
SECOND BATCH
½ pound ground turkey
⅛ teaspoon white pepper
⅛ teaspoon rosemary
⅛ teaspoon sesame seed
2 eggs
SPECIAL UTENSIL
Large soup pot or saucepan
PREPARATION
Cut the garlic bread into 1-inch cubes. Mince the garlic cloves. Remove the skin and pit of the avocado, and cut the yummy remaining part into ½-inch cubes. Mince the green bell pepper.
Add all ingredients listed under first batch to soup pot. Cook on medium heat. Stir frequently enough to keep soup from burning on the bottom before the top gets hot.
(Take a break to consider how beer saved the world.)
Use clean hands to mix second batch of ingredients: ground turkey, white pepper, rosemary, and sesame seed. Cook on medium-high heat. Transfer to soup pot after turkey meat changes from pink to white.
Add eggs after soup gets hot. Stir thoroughly with fork so eggs blend in. Cook on medium heat for 3 minutes. This soup is great.
TIDBITS
1) This was originally called “Paul’s Refrigerator Soup” as many of the ingredients came from my refrigerator, but it tastes so good that I went with Tuscan Sunset.
2) Garlic bread, in particular, was taking over the fridge and blocking the view of everything behind it.
3) The food behind the garlic would have spoiled and eventually mutated into all sorts of new life forms.
4) Who’s to say these life forms wouldn’t have evolved into ravenous carnivores?
5) So, I might have saved my family with this soup. And my goodness, it’s tasty.
6) The food of the ancient Romans was simpler. They were often called “porridge eaters” after the blandness of their cuisine.
7) In their defense, these Romans possessed no refrigerators.
– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.
My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.
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