Gnocchi Sausage Leek Soup

Happy friday!

Ever have the Olive Garden gnocchi soup? Oh so good. Here in our neck of the Canadian woods, we are deprived of olive garden, so we are left just dreaming about eating their unlimited soup, salad and breadsticks. I know! So I had to do something about it..

Potato gnocchi are actually pretty cheap, like $1.50 for 1 kg (32 ounces). I bought a bag a while back, and since this week have been like FREEZING (-20 Celsius), soup sounded perfect. I also had leeks (look like big green onions), and so I combined a gnocchi soup recipe, with a potato leek soup, added some sausage, and OH MY GOODNESS! It was delicious! We combined it with a fresh baguette, and our canadian winter chills left for the evening.

This recipe serves about 8, typically--but when we ate it for dinner, and then for lunch the next day...it was already gone. So in our family, it served a total of 4 adults, and 2 kids!

Cooking and prep time: less than 30 minutes guys!

• 3-5 sausages or sausage meat, removed from the casings and cooked, or diced
• 4 cups chicken stock
• 1 cup half and half
• 1 cup milk
• 1 Tbs olive oil
• 1 stalk celery, diced
• 1 carrot, shredded
• 1 leek, cut (look here to see how to clean and chop a leek, she shows 2 ways, either way is fine, depending on how big you want to cut them)
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 cup fresh packed spinach, chopped
• 1 tsp thyme
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1 Tbs cornstarch (mixed in 1-2 Tbs if water)
• 16 ounces potato gnocchi

1. Heat up the olive oil in a pot over medium heat, and then fry the celery, carrot, leek for about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and stir until you can smell it.
2. Add the cooked sausage meat, chicken stock, half and half, milk, thyme, salt, and pepper. 
3. Heat to boiling, then add the cornstarch mixed in water, stir. 
4. Immediately add the potato gnocchi. Gently boil for 3 minutes, then reduce to simmer for 10 minutes.
5. Add the spinach and cook until it is wilted, a couple minutes.

Oh you will enjoy this! If you want a creamier soup, you can do 2 cups of half and half, or even bump it up to heavier cream. I just happened to only have 1 cup left, and so I did the other cup with milk, and it was amazing and less fatty. Let me know how it turns out!

Bon appetit!

Cathy