Sausage and Vegetable Soup

It's September, and there is a light at the end of this tunnel we call summer!  Of course, it will be stupid hot here until least Halloween, but hey, I can pretend, right?  I'm forcing myself to leave all the fall decor packed away until at least the middle of this month.  We'll see how I do with that.  I love my bin of fake pumpkins though!

Another part of fall that I love?  Big pots of yummy soup in my pretty green dutch oven.  That makes me so happy!  I decided to bust out some old recipes that I haven't made in a long time and revisit them here.  First up - Sausage and Vegetable soup.  It's super easy and tastes really good.

Ingredients:  a large chopped onion, a 1lb chub of sausage, two 32 oz boxes of chicken stock, 2 cans of diced tomatoes, a teaspoon of dried basil, salt and pepper to taste, 1/2 cup small pasta such as stelline, mini shells, orzo, etc, and 3 cups frozen mixed vegetables.

I accidentally grabbed vegetable broth instead of chicken, but to be honest, I wouldn't have known if I hadn't been the one to buy it.  It tasted like I remembered.  Also, I used cancer tomatoes because I used up all my home canned ones and I didn't find a good deal late enough in the summer this year.  The only ones I saw were back in early June and no way I was canning  tomatoes nine months pregnant!!!

Sauté the onion until softened and slightly translucent.  Add the sausage and brown it until it's crumbly and there are brown bits for you to scrape from the bottom of the pot.  Add tomatoes, broth, basil, salt and pepper; bring to a boil. Taste the broth and adjust the seasoning as needed.  Stir in pasta and reduce heat to medium. Simmer 10 minutes.  Add frozen vegetables and simmer an additional 5 minutes.

I only wish I had made some rolls to go with this.