Italian Stuffed Pepper Soup

We had a late lunch with our friends Sharon and Jim in Upton, MA on Tuesday, February 20th - a few days before leaving New England and the late winter behind. What a perfect meal with the Campbells!

Sharon's Stuffed Pepper Soup was so good that I asked her for the recipe. She replied with a list of the ingredients that she throws together. I tried duplicating it and it was almost as perfect as hers. We had Tim and Julie over on a breezy, warm evening in Verandah here in Florida.  Everyone loved this bowl of comfort served with fresh bread, red wine and a salad.

Sauté some shallots and chopped sweet onions in a bit of oil in a Dutch oven (or any other pan.) Add 12 sausages (out of the casings) and use a spatula or other utensil to break them up as they cook. Add 4 cans* of fire-roasted tomatoes. Sharon added some tomato sauce, but we were unfortunately out of tomato sauce so I added the *fourth can of tomatoes. Add some Italian seasoning and dried thyme, a generous T. of fennel seed, a tsp. of dried thyme, and a bit or garlic salt. Add three multi-colored peppers, chopped into 1/2 inch pieces. When the peppers are just cooked, if the Dutch oven is big enough, add 8 cups of beef broth and about 2-4 cups of cooked brown rice.

Or add everything to another pot that will hold everything. (I actually cooked the 2 cups of rice in 4 cups of beef broth until almost done and added everything to a crockpot. I cooked on high four about 3 hours.) If not soupy enough, add more beef broth.

Serve with warm bread, a salad, and a bowlful of freshly grated Parmesan/Pecorino/Romano cheese.

So good!

If you'd like a recipe with more exact ingredients, I found a ton of them online. Just search Stuffed Pepper Soup. Here's one I found while I was uploading Sharon's recipe.