Italian Sausage and Brown Rice Soup

If you haven't noticed, I cook A LOT.  I have a family of 6 to feed.  Luckily, I enjoy being in the kitchen (at least most of the time) and I like knowing that my family is eating nutritious, homemade food. 

When I started this recipe blog almost 3 years ago (I can't believe it's been that long!) my main goal was (and still is) to be more adventurous, but still use ingredients that aren't difficult to find at my local grocery stores.  It seemed like we were making the same meals over and over: pizza, tacos, spaghetti, chicken.  I was worried that trying new recipes would mean the kids wouldn't eat their dinner.  But, dinner was getting boring and I decided trying one new recipe each week shouldn't be too bad and we'd eventually find more dishes that everyone liked.  Expanding our dinner options, I hoped.  We have found quite a few family favorite recipes, almost 100!

As I look for new recipes, sometimes I come across recipes that I'm not sure about.  This was one of those recipes.  It's different from our usual soup recipes and I wasn't sure if we'd like the cooked chopped cabbage in it.  I decided to make it anyway because sometimes you just have to give a recipe a chance and be more adventurous!

Ingredients (printable recipe)
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 pound Hot Italian sausage links
1 onion (large, chopped)
1 cup celery ( 3 celery ribs, chopped)
4 cups cabbage (chopped green cabbage)
1 can (15 oz.) diced tomatoes
3 cans (14.5 oz.) chicken broth
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
1-2 bay leaves
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
About 3 cups cooked Brown rice
Directions
1. Heat a bit of olive oil in a large pot over medium-low heat. Remove sausage from it's casings; add to pot and cook through. Remove cooked sausage to a plate or large bowl. Drain any drippings from the pot.
2. Put a little more olive oil in the same pot. Over medium heat, stir in chopped onion, celery and cabbage. Cook, stirring occasionally, until vegetables begin to soften, about 8-10 minutes.
3. Add tomatoes and chicken broth to the pot. Bring to a boil and immediately lower the heat. Stir in Italian seasoning and bay leaf. Simmer, partially covered for 30 minutes.
4. Stir in sausage and black pepper; simmer for about 5 minutes to heat through.
5. Put a scoop (about 1/2 cup) of brown rice in your bowl and ladle hot soup over it.
Serves 6

Inspired by The Kitchen is My Playground
I changed the original recipe because I didn't have white beans. I substituted brown rice and I used Hot Italian sausage, not sweet. 

The Results...
Surprisingly very good!  My husband and I really liked this soup.  He asked me to put the recipe here on our blog, so I wouldn't lose it. :)  He wants me to make it again.  It turned out much more flavorful than I expected and the sausage gave it a nice little kick.  The spice in this soup comes from the sausage.  We used Hot Italian sausage, but it wasn't really that hot.

I didn't get the same reaction from the kids.  They didn't really like this soup.  My two oldest finished their bowls of soup, but not the two little ones.  My 5 year old had just woken up from a nap and was very cranky---didn't want to eat a thing.  Our little toddler threw her bowl of soup.  Yeah, that's just how dinnertime goes sometimes.

My husband told the kids that they didn't like this soup because they have to be mature---like him---to appreciate this soup.  If you know my husband, you're probably smiling, too. :)

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