I've enjoyed soups of this general variety in various Italian restaurants but I never made any at home. Most likely it was because I don't like most preparations using tortellini, for the advertised ingredients inside were there in ridiculously small amounts, if at all. That meant the tortellini were nothing more than pinched pasta.

There is nothing wrong with pasta. It is great in soups, etc. So if we think of tortellini as just another form of pasta there is no disappointment. With that in mind I decided to find a good soup recipe using tortellini via the Internet, one with a decent quantity of meat.

What I found was so bland (no Italian seasonings, no garlic, etc.) I was tempted to scrap it, but instead I treated it as a partial recipe that simply needed a lot of help. The recipe below is almost all of the ingredients listed in the Internet recipe, modified with substantial changes and additions by me.

As is typical, soups of this type taste best the day after they are made, as the flavors of the various ingredients have time to combine. Unfortunately, letting the pasta sit in the soup broth for longer than necessary to cook it results in soggy pasta and too little remaining broth. One answer is to process any leftovers right after the first meal and freeze them. See the directions at the end of this recipe. Alternatively, if you separate the cooked tortellini from the broth and combine those items only at serving time, there will be no broth absorption problem.

It is nice to have a good crusty bread and some butter to serve with the soup, or even hot bread sticks, as well as a bowl of freshly grated Italian sharp cheese, like Pecorino Romano.

Adding a small side salad to this meal makes it complete, but be sure to serve some chilled Pinot Grigio wine too.

Ingredients: (makes about a gallon and a half of soup)

1 tbsp. of extra virgin olive oil

1 medium size sweet onion, diced

2 stalks of celery thinly sliced

2 large carrots peeled and diced

3 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced

1 tbsp. of dried oregano

1 tbsp. of dried basil

1 1/2 pounds of ground sweet Italian sausage (or link sausage cut crosswise into 1/2" long pieces)

2 quarts of chicken broth

1, 28 ounce can of peeled Italian plum tomatoes and juice, chopped

1, 15 ounce can of tomato sauce

2, 15 ounce cans of white kidney beans

12 ounce package of dried three cheese tortellini (or a 20 ounce container of refrigerated three cheese tortellini)

3 cups of chopped fresh kale

2 tsp. of sea salt

1 tsp. of ground black pepper

A pinch of cayenne pepper

1 cup of freshly grated Pecorino Romano cheese (at serving time)

Directions:

Heat the olive oil in a 2 gallon pot over medium heat.

Add the onion, celery and carrots to the pot, stir well, and cook covered with a lid for 5 minutes.

Add the sliced garlic, stir the mixture, and cook covered with a lid for two minutes.

Season the vegetables with the oregano, basil, cayenne pepper, salt and black pepper and stir well. Keep the mixture covered and warm on very low heat.

Brown the ground (or cut up links of) sweet Italian sausage in a large skillet on medium heat, drain off any melted fat, and break up the sausage into small pieces if you used ground sausage.

Add the sausage pieces to the pot, stir it into the other ingredients, and cook covered on medium heat for 5 minutes.

Add the chicken broth and chopped tomatoes (with the juice) and tomato sauce to the pot, then bring to a low boil.

Add the tortellini, chopped kale and white kidney beans to the pot and cook for 15 minutes at a low boil on low heat.

Taste the soup and if needed adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper.

Serve the soup (it is best the next day) hot along with a bowl of freshly grated Pecorino Romano cheese and some Tuscan Pane or other Italian bread, with butter, on the side.

Like other pasta dishes that have liquid content, the tortellini in this soup will absorb the broth considerably if leftover soup isn't processed and frozen immediately. Failure to do that results in having soggy pasta and too little broth. Thus, to maximize soup quality later for the leftovers, if any, I vacuum seal two to three cup amounts per bag and put the bags into the deep freeze. That avoids the absorption problem completely. I take similar steps with dishes like linguine with white clam sauce ... making individual portions of pasta and sauce, vacuum sealing them, and storing them in the deep freeze.

Enjoy!