Spinach and Sausage Soup

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Hello my fine feathered friends!  Another installment of my meals is headed your way right now!  I pulled this recipe off of Pinterest (um duh), but THEY had it from www.food.com.  Really delicious and perfect for the colder weather Sir Punxsutawney Phil told us would be coming!
So here's everything you will need: Italian sausage with the casings removed, garlic, fresh spinach, chicken broth, capellini (I had an issue with this pasta I will explain in a bit!), French bread, olive oil and Parmesan cheese.  Oh, and don't forget an apron!  Don't want to mess up clothing!  :)

Okay, so as you can see in the photo, I have cavatappi and NOT capellini.  First, the recipe called for capellini OR vermicelli, so I added vermicelli to my shopping list as I was more familiar with that pasta name than the other.  However, when I got to the store they didn't have vermicelli (I may have to shop elsewhere now ;)), and I didn't remember the name of the other pasta once I was there, so I guessed!  Once I got home, took the photo and realized, I just used some whole wheat angel hair I had also bought, instead, so you'll see the pasta change in the recipe.  My suggestion is to try to find the ones the recipe suggests, otherwise angel hair worked perfectly fine.
So first thing's first, I removed the stems from my spinach and threw them under some cold water in a strainer because they were kind of gritty (ew).  Make sure to wash your veggies before use!  I also chopped up 1 tablespoon of fresh garlic to prepare for the next step.

Once this was done, I added the sausage (I got hot, but you can choose to get the sweet, as well) to a sauce pan.  The easiest way I found to removing casings off of sausages is to just run a knife down the middle, to put a slice into it, and peel it off.  Easy peasy!  I cooked that on high heat until it was browned, and then added the chopped garlic and cooked that for another 30 seconds.

Then I added the chicken broth (the recipe calls for 3 14.5 ounce cans), plus the spinach.  The recipe also calls for one of those cans to be filled with water and added to the pot, as well, and then I covered it and brought it to a boil.  After that started to boil I added 1/2 cup of my angel hair (i broke it into tiny pieces), and cooked it until the noddles were done.  The recipe says for another two minutes, however, my previously discussed lack of knowledge in pasta names required me to cook it longer to make sure the angel hair was done!  :)

Now, of course, I forgot to take pictures of the bread before I finalized the dish, but I will still explain everything here.  I made four 1/2 inch slices, threw them in the broiler to broil for one minute on each side, and then added 1 teaspoon of olive oil to each slice and 1/2 teaspoon of Parmesan cheese to each slice.  I put the soup into bowls and topped the soup with each slice of bread and voila!  Dinner was served!

It was really good with the bread but dang the soup absorbs into the bread FAST!  The meal was 495 calories and only $4.31/serving!  Yeah!
Here's the recipe!!

1/2 pound Italian sausage, casings removed
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
1 pound fresh spinach, stems trimmed
3 (14.5 ounces) cans chicken broth
1/2 cup broken pieces capellini or vermicelli
4 slices French bread, 1/2 inch thick
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 teaspoons grated Parmesan cheese, divided

Happy cooking!!!