Chorizo Sausage Soup

I first want to start off by apologizing for not posting anything for the last several days.  I am a member of GFWC (General Federation of Women's Clubs) and we had our annual Virginia convention.  It was a crazy week leading up to the weekend and being gone over the weekend, I wasn't in my kitchen.  My husband pulled some chorizo sausage from the freezer yesterday for us to have, or for me to do something with, for dinner tonight.  The weather has turned very cool in Virginia, almost winter like instead of spring like.  I thought since it was a rainy cold damp day that soup was in order.  I did a little digging around on the Internet to find a recipe that I felt like I wanted to make.  Since I couldn't make up my mind on any one recipe I decided to use a little bit from all the different recipes I found.

Chorizo Sausage Soup
1 package of chorizo sausage (about 3/4 pound), removed from casing
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
1 large onion, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, minced
4 cups of chicken broth
1 - 28 ounce can of diced tomatoes
1 can each of chickpeas and kidney beans, drained and rinsed, mix together
1 tablespoon dried basil
1 tablespoon dried parsley
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
1-1/2 cups pasta (I used chiocciole shaped pasta - looks like a large macaroni)
1 - 6 ounce bag baby spinach
Parmesan Cheese

Remove meat from casing of sausage. Make a slit down the center of each link, open the casing up and scrape the meat out of the casing into a heated (medium heat) 6 quart dutch oven that has the olive oil added.  Cook, stirring often breaking sausage into bite sized chunks (don't make them too small, you want to get those bites of sausage as you eat the soup.  Cook until brown.  It there is a lot of fat, spoon some of it out.  Add carrots, onion, and garlic.  Cook until onion is tender, about 5 to 10 minutes.  Add herbs and stir until fragrant.  Add chicken broth, tomatoes (with juice), add about 3/4 of the bean mixture and bring to a boil (you can add more of the beans but you want to make sure that you have enough liquid to cook the pasta in).  Bring soup to a boil, add pasta, cover and cook for 10 minutes until pasta is tender.  Stir in spinach (a little at a time) until wilted.  Add more salt and pepper to taste.  Serve with freshly grated parmesan cheese.

This post was shared on Easy Natural Food Sunday Night Soup Night 4/29/2012 and on
The Healthy Home Economist Monday Mania 4/30/2012