I love soup.  Like all kinds of soup.  I do consider soup to be a meal – especially this Tuscan White Bean Soup – its got beans, its thickened with butternut squash and potatoes, and it even has sun dried tomato chicken sausage meatballs – winning!

This is my take on Ribollita – which is a white bean soup that’s traditionally thickened with bread – OMG, so good!  But over the weekend I realized I bought a package of already cut butternut squash that was nearing a week old and had to be used up, so I decided to pair that with canned potatoes as the base of this soup.

Do you guys ever use canned potatoes?  OMG, it’s a pantry staple in my house.  Fully cooked potatoes ready for anything!  I’ve made mashed potatoes with canned potatoes, and its the base for my crustless quiches.

I microwaved the butternut squash on my “fresh vegetable” setting on my microwave – probably took about 4 minutes.  I weighed out the canned potatoes after draining.  Make sure to leave the rest of your groceries on the counter while taking your food photography pics – that’s what the professionals do, no?!

I scored on this package of chicken sausage – it’s my grocery store’s brand of chicken sausage, this time sun dried tomato.  It normally sells for $4.99 a package, but I got it $4 off – .99 cents baby!  Each link is 2 points, so I made each link into 6 baby meatballs so I would know how to count the points.  The whole soup recipe is only 1 smart point for the base – add 2 points for 6 meatballs and one more point for the shredded Parmesan and soup is on!

To make the meatballs, I simply squeezed the sausage out of the casing, and did a quick pan fry for a couple minutes over high heat – just to give them a bit of a crust and they finished cooking in the soup.

The finished dish.  I added fresh spinach just before serving – you don’t want to add the spinach while cooking the soup because it will just wilt, turn dark green, and be gross.  Not that I know that first hand, I heard it from a friend.

It’s rich, and hearty – I made the whole pot 6 servings so it’s a very generous 1 2/3 cup serving.  Add it’s worth the extra point for the shredded Parmesan. 

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After my 40 vanilla wafer incident the night before last, yesterday I tried to keep my points low.  Luckily I wasn’t that hungry, so this hardboiled egg an apple was fine for breakfast.

I got my walking shoes on, I forgot that Jenn had a lunch obligation, and I kept texting her like “where the fuck are you!”  Ha!  

I had my buffalo chicken chili for lunch, with 12 tortilla chips, for a 5 point lunch.

When I got home, Jacob proudly said “I made dinner!”  So sweet.  Also, if someone makes you food, even if you didn’t want to spend the points, enjoy it – food is love!  He made stuffed shells (meatless, because, well – Hannah!) stuffed with ricotta cheese and topped with mozzarella cheese.  Delish!  That is a salad plate, and it was plenty for dinner.

Since dinner was made, I had so much time for activities last night!  These are delicata squash bizcuits – although my friend Jeana came up with the name #delicuits – love it!  These are light, and flakey.  It’s my next recipe for The Chopping Block, but these will definitely be on my Thanksgiving table.  I need to add a bit more salt, and get an actual biscuit cutter – I cannot find mine for the life of me.   These are worth the 4 points each!

Happy Wednesday friends – make it a great day!