Recipe: Sausage Tortellini Soup

This one came across our path back in March when friends set up meals for us after the boys came to stay.  It was a surprising feast of deliciousness that ALL OUR CHILDREN DEVOURED and I HAD to have the recipe right away.  I have since made it again and even again ... including this week when I was signed up to take a meal to a friend who recently just had her fourth bambino.  Don't even get me started on how this is her fourth in 5 years.  So, yes, the dear friend/poor woman needed a meal and I knew just what to take.  It helps a bunch this it is SO CRAZY EASY to prepare.  You know me.

So I whipped this bad boy up by plopping all the ingredients in the crock pot, sent it to work with Josh where it cooked all day and drove his office people crazy before he delivered it to our friends near his work on his way home.  I have been told to forward the recipe for his coworkers or face consequences.  Ha!

So, for one and all, Sausage Tortellini Soup.  Thanks to my friend, Amy, for introducing it to us. :)

1 lb. Italian sausage
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 chopped onion
4 cans tomatoes, undrained (we reduced to 3 cans of diced tomatoes)
2 cups water
1 Tbs. Italian seasoning
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
1 Tbs. chicken bouillon crystals (or 3 cups broth, which I did instead)
1 bay leaf (or 1/4 tsp. thyme which I subbed for lack of bay leaf)
1/2 cup Rose wine (I subbed dry white cooking wine for lack of Rose)
1 (9oz) package of fresh or frozen cheese tortellini

Crumble sausage and fry in skillet with onion and garlic, as you would ground beef.  Drain well.  Put in large soup pot with all other ingredients except tortellini.  Bring to a boil, then lower heat and simmer at least 1 hour.  Dump in tortellini.  Cover and simmer 30 minutes.  Serve with salad and Italian bread.  Hearty enough for main dish or use as soup course for full Italian meal.

(This works fine in the crock pot, too.  Basically, cook on low all day, but like stovetop directions do not put in tortellini til last half hour.)