Quick and Tasty Italian Sausage Soup with Vegan Substitutions

I recently made Italian Sausage Soup with some fresh, local sausage. It was so delicious! The recipe is from Slashfood; it is so speedy and requires minimal knife work. I've included the specific ingredients I used in our soup in parentheses. Vegan suggestions follow.

Slashfood's Italian Sausage Soup
serves 3-4

• 8 ounces hot or sweet turkey Italian sausage (I used the fresh sausage from a local farm)
• 2-3 cloves of garlic, minced*
  
• 2 cups fat-free, less sodium chicken broth
  
• 1 (14.5 ounce) can diced tomatoes with basil, garlic and oregano (We used Muir Glen's Diced Tomatoes with Basil and Garlic)
  
• 1/2 cup uncooked small shell pasta (try 60 % Whole Grain Organic Small Vegetable Shells from Eden Organic)
  
• 2 cups baby spinach leaves
• 2 tablespoons grated fresh Parmesan or Romano cheese
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil

Heat a large saucepan over medium heat. Remove casings from sausage. Add sausage and garlic* to pan and cook about 5 minutes or until browned, stirring to crumble. Drain; return to pan.

While the sausage is browning, start a separate pot and boil water for pasta. Salt the water and cook the pasta until al dente.

Add broth and tomatoes to the saucepan with the sausage in it and bring to a boil over over high heat. Cover, reduce heat and simmer for 5-10 minutes. Remove from heat; stir in spinach until wilted.

Add desired amount of pasta to the bottom of a soup bowl and ladle sausage soup on top. Sprinkle each serving with cheese and basil.

*garlic not included in original recipe

Tovah! Mikus! Eric and Tiffany!! Try this recipe with Tofurky Italian Sausage and your preferred brand of vegetable broth. Sprinkle with nutritional yeast. I think you'll like it. Will you try it? You should.