Life Is A Bowl Of Soup. With Sausage.

Getting prepped for soupalicious.

It's hard to explain my love affair with soup. I just really like making soup. Perhaps it's the very nature of a good soup; taking disparate ingredients and blending them together into something beautifully tasty. Which sounds sort of like our family. We have some legit kooks (a butternut squash or wild rice), some very sensible and level-headed family members (that would be corn), some who would be described as "normal" (a good chicken broth) and then there's one who's fairly whacked (that would be me, the onion).

A key ingredient for some of my favorite soups is sausage. A good smoked sausage, like your kielbasa, is an absolute delight in a soup. Why am I drawn to sausage? Maybe it's because I can relate. Making sausage isn't real pretty, I understand. Family life isn't real pretty sometimes either. But you throw sausage in the fire -- or at least a frying pan -- and oh, what a delight. Life for a big family can feel like sausage making and then you get thrown into the fire. The end result through all that trauma and fire is quite delectable. If you're eating sausage that is. For a family, at least our family, if you can survive all that squeezing and grinding and refining fire, then it's a beautiful picture of how all these different parts can work together and come out good. Or something like that.

The real back story to this blog post is I'm trying to wax poetic about making soup so I can post a blog post. (Did I just use the word "post" three times in a sentence? I need an editor.) So I'm going all symbolic with soup and sausage and family life ... let me know if it isn't working. Before you make any more fun of me, I'll just quit and offer up the recipe for Emeril Lagasse's smoked sausage, butternut squash and wild rice soup. It appears that Mr. Lagasse is pretty handy in a kitchen. (Editor's note: Matthew! Saying Emeril Lagasse is "pretty handy" in a kitchen is like saying Monet was "pretty handy" with a paintbrush. Author's reply: Oh. Well, then I'll say that Mr. Lagasse can cook good.) 

Here's the recipe, courtesy of the Food Network. Enjoy: Le soup extraordinaire

The Catharsis Of Cooking: Dad In The Kitchen

I'm not sure when I got my start in the kitchen. I have memories of living in Prineville, Ore., in our little 860-square-foot house with only a couple of boys underfoot and making chocolate chip cookies. I have fond memories of canning peaches in that little house in the early- to mid-90s. A proper, tree-ripened peach, I do believe, is the perfect fruit. My time in the kitchen expanded over the years to the point that I prepare probably half of our dinners. That makes me a line cook? A buffet chef? A foodie? Or whatever you would call someone who prepares dinner for an intimate crowd of 13 or more, depending on how many Sabo kids are present and accounted for at the time.

Cooking for me is a multitude of things. It can be an act of service, a way for me to help out in the family and give Julie a break. It's an outlet for creativity, taking these raw ingredients and assembling something tasty. It's a passion, something I truly enjoy. I enjoy tweaking recipes and have my own versions of chimichangas, chili, soups and other dishes that I've conjured up over the years.

On Saturday night I made this soup for the first time that was wonderful. Madeline called it "amazing." I agree. I found the recipe on Pinterest. Yes, I'm on Pinterest (hey, don't judge). It's a tortellini and kielbasa soup that I came across after craving a sausage dish. I'm not sure how to explain it, but sometimes I just crave sausage. I like fixing soups because you can easily double recipes to accommodate large volumes of tummies and soup rarely, if ever, loses its tastiness as leftovers.

I highly recommend this soup. You will not be disappointed. Here's a link to the recipe I found on Pinterest: Killer soup