White Bean, Italian Sausage, and Spinach Soup

1/2 lb pork Italian Sweet Sausage, rolled into small balls.

1 small yellow onion, peeled and diced

3 cloves garlic, minced

Olive oil

2 cups chicken broth

2 cups tomato sauce

2 cups white beans

2 or 3 cups roughly chopped sturdy spinach or other greens

Salt, pepper, red pepper flakes, paprika, Italian seasoning mix, to taste

Heat olive oil (maybe two tablespoons?) over medium heat, then gently brown the meatballs and remove.

Add diced onion, and cook about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Try not to brown them, just soften them.  Add the minced garlic and stir about a minute, until fragrant, and add the red pepper flakes.  A generous pinch.  Stir in the tomato sauce and chicken broth, bring to a simmer.

Add the meatballs and let them simmer about 10 min.  Stir in paprika, salt, pepper, Italian seasoning mix, to taste.  Seriously, I basically shook some in, tasted the broth, decided if I needed more, and so on.  Add two cups of white beans of your choice.  If they are canned, drain and rinse before adding.

Gently stir and let simmer for another five minutes, then stir in the spinach just until wilted.

Notes from my no recipe experiment.

1. I made Rancho Gordo Cassoulet beans the day before, and those are the beans I used.  They are simply delicious, and cooking on low in the crockpot is my favorite new way of cooking beans.  I threw in some celery and a bay leaf.

2. I made my own Italian Sweet Sausage mix, but I think any sweet sausage will be fine.  With the red pepper flakes and paprika, it had plenty of heat, so I wouldn’t add a hot italian sausage.

3. I used a sweet smoked paprika—it really makes a difference to have a high quality paprika.