Pantry Soup

Clockwise from top left:  our "pantry soup" before the noodles were completely cooked--there ended up to be LOTS of noodles, Top right:  Rebekah was longing for cinnamon rolls today and her dad sent me this photo of her watching the bread machine make the dough,  Bottom right:  this photo was taken just as the snow stopped falling today.  Sure hope it is done! Bottom left: our grandsons played on hay bales Thursday afternoon when the temperature was in the 60's, 

Last evening rain fell, temperatures dropped, and ice formed.  Early this morning snow began to fall: large fluffy, light flakes that have accumulated to about 2 inches or so.  Farmer John is out feeding cattle, and he is nursing a cold.  I thought homemade soup would be just the thing for a day like today; but what to do?  We haven't made a grocery store run in over a week!  I don't even have a box of pasta of any sort on the shelf, but I did find some lasagna noodles.  I cobbled together a soup that we ended up loving and now am not sure how I did it.  I will do my best to record the process here:

Snowy Day Pantry Soup

Place 1 box oven ready lasagna noodles into a 9 x 13 baking dish and cover with boiling, salted water (about a quart of water with about a teaspoon of salt).  

 Brown:  

1/2 pound sausage 

1 red pepper, chopped  

1 medium onion, chopped 

2 medium carrots, sliced

3 stalks celery, sliced

2 cloves garlic, minced

Add:

2 cups diced tomatoes with juice

1 cup or so chopped cooked chicken

1 quart chicken broth

1 teaspoon ground oregano

1 teaspoon ground sage

1 teaspoon dried basil

Cut the lasagna noodles into bite sized pieces and add to the soup along with the salted water...taste and be careful not to get the soup too salty, can add just enough plain boiling water for the right consistency instead of the salted water if no extra salt is needed.  You might want to add an additional quart of chicken broth--we ended up with a LOT of noodles in this soup as they cooked and expanded.  I used regular sausage in this because that is what we had on hand, but Italian sausage would be good.