Italian Chicken Sausage & Artichoke

I have not brought soup to work for two weeks now due to being away from work. So, hopefully the enthusiasm is still there for Soup At Work Wednesdays.

This week's soup is one I got out of the January 2011 edition of Sunset magazine. I grew up with Sunset magazine. I remember looking at the great scenic pictures when I was very young and then reading the western travel and the home improvement articles when I was older. If you're not familiar with Sunset it is a lifestyle magazine that is focused on the western United States. There are different regional editions such as Southern California, Northern California, the Northwest, and the Southwest which covers Arizona. Some of the articles are common to all editions but there are unique ones to each region. There are usually very good and straightforward recipes and their gardening articles have really increased the last few years. I got the design for our wooden garden boxes from Sunset.

Anyhoo, I was getting caught up on my magazines the other night and came across this recipe which was part of a larger article titled "Chicken Soup For Every Occasion". Of course any article addressing soups always catch my eye. The Italian Chicken Sausage & Artichoke Soup recipe is extremely easy to make with only 5 ingredients and two steps to the preparation. The fennel in the sausage lends a great flavor and artichoke hearts are not a common ingredient in soups and I love artichokes so this one had to get made.

The recipe below results in about 6 quarts. My changes to the Sunset recipe were to use two Hot Italian Sausages just to spice things up, two 32 ounce containers of chicken broth (Sprouts had them on sale for $1.99 a quart) and three 14 ounce cans of Trader Joe's Artichoke Hearts rather than frozen ones. I use the TJ's Artichoke Hearts regularly on salads so I had a few cans in the pantry. These artichoke hearts are not marinated but rather packed in water. I used Red Swiss Chard because of the great color it adds. If you're going to use the Parmesan Cheese as a garnish I recommend getting the Parmesan/Romano blend from Trader Joe's. It comes in a 12 ounce container and is really good. I eat it by the spoonful it is so tasty. Let's go...

INGREDIENTS

• 2 lbs Italian chicken sausage, casings removed and meat broken up. This will be about 5-6 sausages depending on how large they are. I substituted 2 hot Italian chicken sausages for 2 of the regular ones just to spice things up.
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 2 32 oz containers of chicken broth
• 3 14 oz containers of Trader Joe's Artichoke Hearts (packed in water, not marinated)
• 2 bunches of red Swiss chard, stemmed and chopped

Garnish

• Grated Parmesan/Romano cheese
• Warm ciabatta bread

METHOD

1. Heat the olive oil in a large (at least 7 quarts) soup pot over medium-high heat. Cook the sausage until browned, stirring often. This should take about 10 minutes. Add the broth, artichoke hearts and 2 cups of water and bring to a boil. Use your spoon to get any fond off of the bottom of the pot
2. Reduce the heat to a simmer. Add the chard and cook, covered, until the chard is wilted, about 3 minutes. If you're making the soup ahead of serving, hold off on adding the chard until the soup has been reheated in order to maintain the crispiness of the chard.

Serve with grated cheese and warm bread