Pizza soup Recipe!

One of the struggles I have with making dinner every night and having kids is:

• Finding something that my husband and I like to eat
• Something that is as healthy BUT TASTY as I can
• Something my 3 & 4 year old will eat. 
• I struggle finding something different! 

Eating in every night can get bland and dull when ts the same pile of recipes you find yourself pulling from. I often scour the internet and dig through all of my recipe books trying to find the perfect recipe that is affordable, one I could easily replicate, and toddler approved. I jumped for joy when I found a pizza soup recipe that seemed to hit all of these spots. The kicker? It is delicious and was easy to make!

I'm not a person with a lot of time and I am kinda finicky myself. Many recipes I found used different meat options but I like using the Jimmy Dean type breakfast sandwich that comes uncooked in a plastic tube sealed at both ends. Other recipes used organic chicken sausage links, smoked sausage links all diced up etc. I wanted to use sausage that was more like the sausage I like on my pizza, so I went with the breakfast sausage so I could mash it up in a frying pan easily.

I am not a fancy cook. I like to make tasty things but make them fast and simple. I am more efficient than fancy due to limited time and I am sure I am not alone in this. That can be good and bad, but is what it is!

Ingredients

• 1 Tbsp minced Garlic
• 1 small chopped Onion
• 1 chopped Bell pepper
• 1 tube pork breakfast sausage
• 2 tsp Basil
• 1 tsp Oregano
• 32 oz ( you can find this in low sodium) veggie broth
• 1 28 oz can tomato sauce (you can also find this with no added salt)
• 1 can diced tomatoes ( you can find this with no added salt)
• 1 can of sliced black olives ( I used two smaller cans because I love black oilives)
• 1/4 cup Parmesan Cheese
• Serve with a side of whole grain toast or homemade bread

Instructions

I used a largish pot and poured in the container of veggie broth, four small 4 cans of tomato sauce into the pot. I then cracked open all of the canned ingredients and spices and tossed them in. I let them heat up together on medium heat while I cooked the sausage in a separate pan. While the sausage was cooking I diced up the onions and the green peppers and tossed them into the pot. When the sausage was done I added it into the soup ( you can drain it if it is too greasy of-course .) I then added the Parmesan cheese . I let cook until the green peppers and the onion were cooked all the way through.

When the soup was finished, I poured it into soup bowls and garnished with shredded cheese, oyster crackers and served with some home made bread on the side. My Husband said that the crackers and cheese garnish really made it taste like Pizza Soup. The kids enjoyed dipping the bread in the soup and we liked piling some of the "toppings" in it too. This pizza soup is easily one of my favorites now!

Suggested "toppings" :
Mushrooms, pepperoni, ham, etc. I also thing it would be delicious to pour the soup into oven safe soup bowls and baking some mozzarella cheese over the top.