Sausage Tortellini Soup

 Lately it seems like I've been seeing an awful lot of recipes for Tortellini Soup.

• Noble Pig posted Sausage Tortellini Soup on 10 January 2014
• Food Network Magazine's January 2014 issue had Meatball Tortellini Soup, which was also posted in the 22 January 2014 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 'What's For Dinner' Section
• One of the recent Penzeys catalogs had Tortellini Soup with Sausage 

Lots of tortellini soups with sausage/meatballs and using beef/chicken broth/stock, with/without tomatoes - so many options! I was drawn to the tortellini. SP was drawn to the sausage (from Ricci's, of course) and the fact that it was soup. Since the soup has pasta, the tomato one sounded yummy, so we decided to go with the soup from Noble Pig.

This soup is very easy to make. It doesn't take much time - it took an hour from start to finish. It's also very tasty and filling and comforting - perfect on the cold, cold winter evenings.

Next time, I think I might want to try it without the tomato flavors (just chicken broth) and maybe add some additional vegetables, like the Penzeys version with zucchini. Maybe add some parmesan rind while it simmers.

Our changes from the Noble Pig recipe:

• No garlic
• Ricci's sausage, not Jimmy Dean
• Chicken broth, not stock
• No dried red chili peppers
• No kosher salt
• More than 3 oz spinach
• Sprinkle of parmesan cheese on top