Julie Ballantyne Brown: Author

You know that Tommy and Nick are big fans of Tommy’s mom’s sausage potato soup. (Especially Nick!) Here’s how you can make it at home. Be sure you have your parents’ permission or assistance.

Ingredients

1 lb. ground Italian sausage

6 slices of bacon

3 large potatoes

2 small cans of chicken broth

1 quart of water

2 cloves of garlic (peeled and sliced) or 1/4 tsp. garlic powder

1 cup whipping cream

Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Carefully peel the potatoes and cut them up into chunks. Add the potatoes, water, chicken broth, garlic into a large pot and heat it until it simmers (softly boiling) on medium heat. Let that simmer together for about 15 minutes.

While that’s simmering, cook the Italian sausage in a skillet until it is all brown with no pink showing. Break it up with a spoon while it’s cooking so that it’s in small pieces. Drain the grease when it’s cooked and leave it in the pan.

Fry the bacon in another pan and take it out of the pan and onto a plate to cool when it’s done. When the bacon is cool, tear it up into smaller pieces.

After the potatoes have simmered for 15 minutes, add the sausage and the bacon to the pot. Stir and let them cook together for about 10 more minutes.

Stir in the cup of cream and let it heat up in the soup, about 3-4 minutes.

Very carefully, taste the soup with a small spoon (blow on it first, the soup will be very hot!) and decide if you want to add salt and pepper. Only add a little bit at a time until your soup tastes just right. Use a different spoon each time you taste so that you don’t spread germs. If you’re unsure, add about 1/2 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp pepper. You can always add more when it’s in your bowl.

Spoon the soup into bowls with a ladle and eat!

This soup goes really well with a warm slice of French or Italian bread.

Enjoy!

Questions? Type them as comments on this post and I’ll answer you.