Bowtie Sausage Soup

I bookmarked a similar recipe a while back because a certain sausage brand shouted out the link since it mentioned using their brand sausage.  I forgot about it, and stumbled across it again when planning out this week's meals.  A quick Google search showed that the recipe is fairly common, but it just doesn't have the brand name sausage mentioned.  I didn't mention that brand here either because, as much as I like it, it tends to be expensive.  Not only that, but I wanted to vary the dish up a bit.

The recipe is very basic, but I decided to amp it up slightly to get more servings out of it, and to make it heartier.  I also like having multiple sausage types in a dish like this so you can get different flavors and textures.  It is rather inexpensive to make, and you can freeze the leftovers for a nice meal later on.  Even with the "rooster" sauce, the soup is not very spicy, and people that don't like spicy foods should still enjoy this.

Bowtie Sausage Soup

Ingredients:

• 1 lb smoked turkey sausage, sliced
• 1 lb (approximately 3 links) pork bratwurst sausage, chopped or sliced
• 1 slice of lean bacon, chopped
• 8 cups (64 oz) low sodium chicken broth
• 1 15oz can of tomato sauce
• 1 lb bowtie pasta
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 2 green onion stalks (green and white parts), chopped
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 tbsp dried thyme
• 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 2 tbsp "rooster" (Sriracha) sauce (optional)
• 1 tsp liquid smoke (optional)
• salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Brown smoked turkey sausage, bratwurst, and bacon in a large stock pot with the stove set to medium heat.
1. Optional step: get impatient and jack the heat up to medium high and walk away. Come back a minute or so later when the bacon and sausage fats are scorching the bottom of the pot. Turn heat back down to medium and pretend you totally meant to do that. It will taste awesome either way (it did).
2. Add green onion and garlic to pot. Heat until the onion is soft and the garlic is slightly browned.
3. Pour the chicken broth into the pot.  Stir it around well, and scrape the bottom of the pot well if you did the optional step 1.
4. Stir in the tomato sauce, pasta, thyme, bay leaves, Worcestershire, sriracha, liquid smoke, salt and pepper.  Raise heat to medium-high to high in order to bring the soup to a boil.  Reduce the heat to medium-low to medium, cover, and simmer for 20 minutes stirring occasionally. 

Serves 6 to 7