Sunday Soup #73: Spicy Tuscan Soup

This one initially caught my eye because it resembled a particular Olive Garden soup of which I am a fan, and this Sunday seemed to just beg for a warm, hearty soup to fill our bellies! It also drew me that the picture from the website was not the typical engineered, glossy, staged-type picture that is usually on professional recipe sites, but rather more closely resembled the simple iPhone pics I take of my soups. Yay for the little guy!! But, did the taste on this one deliver?

This recipe came from: https://tastykitchen.com/recipes/soups/spicy-tuscan-soup/

*Pic 1 - https://tastykitchen.com/recipes/soups/spicy-tuscan-soup/

Variations from Recipe as Written: I doubled the recipe. That's it!

General Thoughts: This soup was decently easy to prepare... The biggest time suck was peeling the potatoes, but only having to cut them longways and then slice them into 1/4" half moons, rather than having to fully chop or dice them, was a nice trade-off. And, if you make this one, keep in mind that the recipe calls for you to remove and reserve the sausage after browning, and drain the sausage grease before proceeding, so make sure you have suitable stove/counter real estate available to enable that operation.

*Pics 2 & 3 - Pictures from when I made it

I have to say, the taste let me down a bit on this one. It was warm and hearty, so it delivered on that promise, but it was just missing... something. At first, I thought it might be butter (as weird as that sounds). Other, similar, versions of this soup that I've had in the past left me with a sense of a buttery richness that was lacking in this one, despite the use of heavy cream. Using breakfast sausage (as opposed to a more traditional Italian sausage) gave the soup a unique flavor profile, but that was not necessarily a good thing. It is not that it was bad, really, just not quite "right". Which was unfortunate because, beyond the sausage, the soup was otherwise somewhat lacking in flavor; a heavier dose of pepper and the addition of hot sauce to my bowl did help, however.

Potential Improvements? This one could certainly be improved with a few changes... I'd use hot Italian sausage rather than breakfast sausage. I'd add more pepper to the pot. And, maybe a tablespoon or two of salted butter?

Polling the Fam: I'd make this one again with the changes above, but it was just kind of "meh" for me overall, in its current state. Becky said it was "just okay," and she did not care for the breakfast sausage taste. Hunter said it was pretty good, at first, but then said "it was missing a flavor" (though he did not know what) and ended with "It was just okay." Fox simply said he thought it was good.

Verdict: It was okay. (3 stars)