Zuppa Toscana Soup

How I can Zuppa Toscana Soup Base.

Chicken noodle soup base:

[Applause] [Applause] Hi everybody it’s Lori again and welcome back to my kitchen hey I kind of have soup going on in my mind here the last few days um we’ve had obviously some dietary changes in our household um Roger hasn’t technically graduated from an all liquid diet to an all solid diet

Yet and so I’ve really been thinking a lot about soups and usually I do that in the fall when we’re heading into winter because what’s better on a cold winter day than a hot steamy wonderful comforting bowl of soup but right now I’m just kind of thinking about um

Different options that are easy for him to consume and soup just seems to fit the bill so the other day I shared with you my um homemade chicken noodle soup base and we’ll put the um the video link down in the description of this video today if any of you are interested in

That one also but today what I would like to share with you is another one of our absolutely favorite soups and that is zppa Tuscana soup now if you’ve ever been to that Italian restaurant restaurant The Olive Garden um many of you are probably familiar with zpp

Tasana soup it is a pork sausage and potato soup and it’s kind of cream based all right wonderful soup and yes you can do this at home um but now when we are talking Dairy based items um now I am not against canning Dairy all right all

Of you know that I can Dairy I can milk I can uh cream I can Che cheese I can butter all right so canning Dairy is not a problem but when it becomes a problem is when you combine that Dairy with vegetables and meat and when I say it

Becomes a problem there’s just a few things that happen Dairy itself when it’s canned alone has a very short canning period all right dairy products don’t take very long at all in a pressure caner or hot water bath or a steam you know steam can or whatever

Just a very short period but when you combine that dairy product with say a vegetable or a meat the extended canning time that is required for that vegetable or meat a lot of times has really negative effects on the dairy itself um they will become very overcooked uh a

Lot of times they’ll Scorch and burn um they can curdle uh and and that’s just because Dairy doesn’t like to be canned at really really long periods of time or long periods of time under extreme heat so when I’m making my zppa Tuscana soup I elect to leave out the dairy and I

Just add that when I go and pop open a jar to heat and eat so I’m going to share my recipe with you today this will give you six quarts of zppa Tuscana soup base all right so it requires 3 lbs of por sausage now you can also use ground

Pork you could use beef if you wanted to you could use ground turkey or chicken or ground venison but if you want that traditional Italian soup flavor I do suggest using ground pork sausage which is what I’m going to be doing today ground pork sausage so I would like you

To take those three lbs of ground pork sausage and um Brown them and drain them and just set them aside then what you’re going to need is about six medium or large potatoes go ahead and peel those and chunk them up into bite-sized pieces all right they don’t have to be diced

Really small just nice siiz pieces that’ll fit in your mouth or on your spoon you’ll need two small to medium onions and go ahead and chop those up well and then for your oh and then kale you need kale and I know that this is going to be one of

Those things too people just kind of wrinkle their nose up when you say kale but kale is the traditional ingredient in zap Tuscana souit now can you substitute spinach yes you can but spinach does not hold up quite as well as the kale does the kale really holds

Up very well in this soup and there’s so many other things going on in it that we just don’t find it objectionable at all you know not that we’re huge kale fans but in this soup we really really like the kale um and then we’re going to need

Salt pepper um oregano and garlic and as far as the garlic is concerned you’ll need six cloves of minced garlic and I’m going to cheat today and I am going to use prepared minced garlic all right you’ll need for each quart jar you will need one minced clove of garlic and then

You’re going to need just a few little red pepper flakes also okay so for right now I’m just going to page down and what I have going on on my stove is I have my 3 lbs of browned pork sausage all right I’ve just browned it all up and I’ve

Drained it well and and just kind of set it aside and what I’m going to do is I’m going to take and find my teaspoon measure measuring spoon these things are wearing out so much that I can’t hardly even tell what they say anymore there’s my teaspoon to those 3 lbs of ground

Meat Brown drained ground meat we are going to add 1 teaspoon of salt 1 teaspoon of pepper and one teaspoon of oregano and you know I’m I’m not really afraid of oregano to either um just like I’m not afraid of uh garlic I’m going to add a

Little extra just because I feel like doing that tonight anyway so we have those three things in there the salt the pepper and the oregano and then we’re just going to stir that up now my meat’s been sitting here for oh I don’t know half hour 45

Minutes it’s cooled off but all I’m going to do is just stir that up good to just incorporate all of those into the meat and then I’m going to set that aside and just forget about it for a little while all right now I also have

My uh caner right now I’m just using this oh let’s get you aimed up I’m using this to blanch my kale all right and my kale you need two to three Bunches of kale or if you’re like me and you want to take a shortcut you can get

Yourself to all these and you can buy these bags of organic kale um these are non GMO it’s chopped up for you already and it’s actually washed it says thoroughly washed on it all right but the thing about the kale whether you’re going to prepare your own Bunches of

Kale and get them all cut up or whether you’re going to buy these wonderful handy dandy little bags of kale and I do use two bags um for these six quartz of soup we need to uh kind of blanch this kale because kale is so big and fluffy

And crunchy and it takes up you know it takes up so much room I’m going to just pull a little little bit of it out here you know you can see it’s just so fluffy and fresh and crispy and whatever else we really kind of need to blanch this to

Reduce uh reduce the size and the volume of the kale so that it will fit into our canning jar a little bit better and not take up so much room and then also in the canning process it won’t shrink as much because you have already pre-shrunk

It so all I do to blanch that kale is I have some hot water in my caner and all I do is dump that whole bag in there stir it around a little bit and you guys this takes absolutely no time at all literally just under a

Minute if you have your water really really boiling it’ll only take seconds but my water is almost to Boiling and what this does is it just it just blanches it enough to kind of reduce the size of the kale and the fluffiness of the kale all right and that right

There looks about good to me going to turn that off and as you can see I already have my first bag blanched and kind of reduced so I’m just going to go ahead and I’m going to fish out the rest of my kale here play a little uh stove top

Jenga just fish out that beautiful blanched kale and like I said if you’re going to use a if you would prefer to use spinach just if you really really do not like the idea of kale if you prefer to use spinach I do suggest that you Blan Your

Spinach also in the same way either steam it or just boil it for a couple of seconds just get it kind of wilty all right so we’ll get this out of our hot water it’s a lot more flexible now this is by no means cooked all right this is just blanched

All right I’m going to go ahead and finish fishing out the rest of my kale and I’m going to clean up my area and get my canning jars over here and then I’ll be back and I’ll show you how to assemble this wonderful soup be back in

Just a minute all right so I got my area all organized and I brought over my jars and have everything ready so now we can start start assembling our soup I really like to put my herbs in first and to each quart jar and today I am using Wide

Mouth Jars the reason why I like to use Wide Mouth Jars in this particular application is the combination of meat and potatoes a lot of times boils up excessively in your jar and when you have a narrowmouth jar I have just found that they like to overflow really really

Easily so one of the things that I do to avoid that is I use a wide mouth jar it gives the jar a little bit more um space to vent instead of all of that hot steamy air kind of going up the neck of the jar into this little area it’s kind

Of like a garden hose you know if you pinch off the end of a garden hose that water is going to spray out more forcefully um so I avoid some of that by using a wide mouth jar and another thing that we’re going to do with this soup is

We are really really going to watch the head space on it okay we do do not want to overfill our jars because then we have overflow issues during the canning process so to each quart jar I like to add just a little pinch of red pepper

Flakes to each one and when I say a little pinch I mean a little pinch you can overdo these things really really easily so I don’t know maybe H eight or 10 little flakes in each quart jar and you can also do this in pint size okay

You would just cut all of your your uh ingredients you know the measurements in half per quart jar um if you were going to do it in a pint jar just cut cut those measurements in half but to each quart jar I’m going to put a little pinch of red pepper

Flakes and then we are going to add one clove of garlic to each jar minced clove of garlic and of course like I said I’m going to cheat today I’m going to use um store bought minced garlic and y’all know we are not a tra of garlic in this

Family so I’m going to put a heaping teaspoon of minced garlic into each one of my canning Jars all righty and then we have our our fresh chopped onions and onions is pretty much just up up to you how much you want in uh each quart jar also I kind of take I don’t know I take a full full all five finger I take five finger

Pinch of onions and if that doesn’t look like enough well I’ll just go ahead and put another pinch in all right it’s just totally up to you and totally up to your taste but onions is not one of those things that um ever intensifies in Canning so I’m not afraid of Them see if I feel skimpy on any of these I’ll add a few more onions there we go all right I’m feeling pretty good about that we’ll set those aside now this is about the time that I like to add my kale I like to add a

Little layer of kale on the bottom of each jar and I also add a layer of kale um towards the middle of the jar also but I’m not afraid of kale it does shrink down very nicely and since we have already pre- uh blanched it it is

Very soft and flexible and it goes into these jars really really easily so I like to put that beautiful kale towards the bottom and once you see these jars assembled you’ll you’ll see why I like to do it in layers like this because it’s actually it’s just absolutely

Beautiful it presents beautifully in the jar it tastes wonderful um I just really encourage you to try it and it’s so easy also so I’ve got a little bit of kale in each one of my jars I’ll uh lift one up here for you let’s set this over

Here and this will pack down once we get potatoes and stuff on there but you can just see you know I’ve got a pretty good good size little H handful of kale in there now what we’re going to do is we’re going to go ahead and we’re going

To add some potatoes to each jar last one back there see might add just a couple more potatoes to each jar here all right that looks good now what I’m going to do is I’m going to add 1/2 cup of my um browned uh pork sausage browned and drained and

Seasoned pork sausage and I add kind of a heaping half cup per jar let’s make sure we’re on frame here so you can see sometimes I get ahead of myself and I don’t think about the fact that you guys are watching what I’m doing so I don’t always have that camera aimed

Right a heaping half cup to each jar all right and then what I’m going to do is I’m just going to kind of go back and I’m going to equally distribute whatever meat is left into each jar and of course you know depending on the

Fat content of your meat this is why I’m not giving you like a definite uh put a cup in because uh you know depending on how fatty your pork was or whatever type of meat that you are uh adding you know depending on how fatty it was you might

Not have quite as much as I do or I might not have quite as much as you do at the end I’m going to leave just a little bit left behind because I don’t want the Stars to get over but you can see that there’s quite a bit

Of meat and this is going to get mashed down a little bit more as we add ingredients okay so I’m going to go back and I’m going to grab my kale again and I’m going to get a nice little handful I don’t even think I need that funnel

Tonight I’m going to get a nice handful of kale and I’m going to press that in on top of each jar on top of the meat and like I said this is just like one of our favorite soups it’s just so flavor flavorful it’s hearty and when you

Finish it off with that cream oh it’s just delightful and on top of it these jars are absolutely lovely on the Shelf they just present so nicely on on the Shelf not that we always worry about what our canned goods look like but it

Sure is kind of nice to look at them and think oh those are pretty and this is one of those things that when it’s done you just look at it and you go oh that’s so pretty all right so I’ve got a good handful of kale I am kind of packing

This down a little bit if I feel like a jar needs a little bit more I will add just a touch more all right so I will show you where I’m at at this point in time so we have all of our onions and Seasonings in the

Bottom we have a layer of kale we have a layer of potatoes we have our meat and another layer of kale now I’m just going to top off with just a few more potatoes in each jar and I do like to make sure that that kale is completely covered in potatoes

Because those potatoes kind of help keep those layers in order instead of all of that um that fluid during the canning process kind of boiling up and mixing everything up these potatoes on top really kind of help things stay in layers and stay really pretty in the jar

So I do kind of equally distribute throughout the whole layer of kale to make sure I have potatoes covering all of that kale all right I’m feeling really really good and comfortable with all of that let’s get this out of the way and I will show you what this pack looks

Like at this point in time all right all those beautiful herbs the kale potato meat kale potato so it’s almost like you’re making a lasagna in a jar but you’re making zppa Tana soup in a jar all right so it as you know I better uh

Point out my head space too now my head space I am literally at 2 in head space at this point in time and I want you to be aware of that because head space really means a lot in this particular um recipe like I said the combination of

That meat and the potatoes and stuff it just really really boils up and this is just one of those things that notoriously you have issues with overflow problems out of your jar so watch that head space make sure that you are leaving that 2in head space at the

Top of the jar okay okay and I know that just doesn’t even sound normal you know usually we leave about a an inch head space but in this particular recipe you really need that 2 in all right so you can see that each one of my jars has

That 2 in head space I can really stick my fingers down in there before I start touching potatoes all right now what we are going to do is we are going to take broth of your choice all right I do prefer to use beef broth in in this but

I’ve used chicken broth before and it works really well so the broth of your choice I’m going to use beef broth and I am just going to carefully pour in that broth now you have a layer of kale and you can kind of see the the

Fluid likes to stay at the top of the jar it takes a while for that broth to run down into the bottom through that layer of kale and I do not I do not feel the need to Buble most of my things but this is one of those things that

Sometimes I will take um the end of a spatula and just kind of debubble and make sure that that um broth is getting all the way down to the bottom of the jar and filling up properly all right so just do this slowly and carefully and kind of debubble as you go

So that that fluid gets down through all of your layers you don’t want to mess them up really you know cuz that that layered look inside of your jar is just so wonderful to have so kind of be careful while you’re debubbler jar and through all of your

Layers okay you can do this carefully enough you can see that I’m still really nicely layered and I haven’t mixed things up really you know a whole lot while I was make sure that when you are filling with your broth leave 2 in head space okay

And you can see that my potatoes are not even completely covered with broth now your potatoes are going to render a little bit of juice your kale will render a little bit of juice your onions will render a little bit of juice and at the end of this process things will

Settle a little bit and you will have the proper um fluid coverage of all of your ingredients okay so don’t be afraid of that 2-in head space but believe me you need it okay so I’m just going to go ahead and I’m going to complete filling my jars with my broth And leaving that 2in head space how beautiful is that okay so I’m just going to go ahead and finish my jars Here All righty now just like any other canning application we are just going to take a clean wet washcloth and wipe the rims of those jars really well to make sure there is no grease no food particles um anything on there that is going to interfere with our

Seals and once again today I am going to be using my wonderful superb canning lids these are the best thing on the market you guys but when I’m using my superb canning lids I only tighten to the first sign of resistance okay and then as I’m removing them from the caner

I gently tighten them the rest of the way not I don’t crank them down I’m very very careful but I’ve just found out that uh just to the first sign of resistance with these is best because the ceiling compound is so thick on these Lids that the jars kind of have a

Hard time venting and you can have buckling of these Lids if you overtighten them so just to the first sign of resistance and then it is going to go in to a room temperature caner which I have prepared let me get my broth out of the way

Here so pretty much all of my ingredients are at room temperature you know I pre-cooked my meat and I pre- blanched my kale and of course the potatoes are room temperature and my broth is room temperature so I am I’m I’m starting with a room temperature

Caner and we’re just going to heat that slowly vent it for 10 minutes bring it up to pressure and this soup because our jars are so full of goodness we are going to pressure can quartz for 90 minutes now if you choose to pressure can pints it would be 75 minutes and if

You would like to hot water bath this soup either size jar whether it’s a pint or a quart you would hot water bath for three hours but I’m just going to go ahead and get my first jar into the caner and and get that caner moved over

Here where it’s on my favorite burner you know we all have our favorite burner and I’m just going to continue sealing up my jars and getting them into the caner and ready to be processed just to the first sign of resistance and in it goes Okay I’m going to check my meat situation out here I honestly feel like I have enough for one more quart and I can fit one more quart into my Presto 23 so you guys I’m just going to assemble one more quart of zppa Tuscana now the

Reason why I say six quarts is uh for this recipe is like I said you are going to vary um depending on your meat quality if you buy a um a meat that is really high in fat when you go to Brown that meat you’re going to be draining a

Lot off a lot of the volume okay so the more lean your meat the more quartz you’re going to get out of it and of course too you know it depends on how many potatoes and kale you decide to put into your jars also but I’ve got enough

Meat left over and I’ve also got left over kale and potatoes that I’m actually I’m just going to go ahead and I’m going to assemble one more cart so I will do that and I will be right back all right guys so I had enough ingredients left

For my 7eventh quart jar here I’ve got it completely filled going to do the same thing as all the other ones I’m going to wipe that Rim off with a clean wet washcloth and place my lid and get that right into the caner with all of its brothers and

Sisters and then we will get this started now uh like I said because those jars are so full I am am going to can this at meat times um PC uh quarts are 90 uh pints are 75 okay what am I doing wrong here tonight I

Think I have my caner around the wrong way guys I do there we go all right anyway uh PC quarts are 7 uh PC quarts are 90 pints are 75 and if you would prefer to hot water bath either one of these size jars it would

Be 3-hour hot water bath now since I’m beginning with all cold or room temperature stuff I am going to heat this only over medium heat and on some of your stoves you might even want to go low just until all of that stuff gets warmed up because if you bring it to a

Boil too quickly you can really have a lot of overflow issues so I just encourage you to heat up your caner slowly unless of course you’re doing a hot water bath in a hot water bath you’re probably not going to have that issue quite as bad as with a pressure

Caner but I’m going to bring this up to temperature I’m going to vent for 10 minutes and then I’m going to uh put my appropriate weight for my elevation or altitude on which for me is 10 lbs um please look at a uh accredited um I guess uh chart

Online um everybody up to 1,000 ft uh you know from sea level to 1,000 ft should should be using 10 lbs of pressure everybody above that it it kind of goes up if you’re using a gauge but if you’re using a weighted rocker if you’re above 1,000 ft you should be at

15 lbs but look at a chart online for that stuff and of course when you are hot water bathing if you’re at an higher elevation you do need to add additional hot water bath time too and there are charts online for that but anyway so I’m going to get this uh this pressure

Canning process started and I will see you in probably about 2 hours after my caner cools off and we can uh remove these jars safely and I’ll show you the beautiful results all right so I ran out of steam and energy last night and so I

Just after my canning session was over I allowed my jars to cool and seal um as we always do uh this morning I removed the bands and I washed my jars up really well it’s always important to do after after your um jars have cooled and sealed always make sure to remove that

Screw on band and really wash your jars well food and grease can get kind of caught on the threads of the jar and so it’s important to always remove that and wash it well and uh that really prevents uh issues with bugs and rodents and things like that in your storage area so

These are all cooled sealed washed up and absolutely beautiful I want to just give you a shot of how beautiful this zppa Tuscana soup is it just presents so nicely in the jars you can see the layers of kale and potatoes and the meat layer and yeah you

Know there is a little bit of fat on top from the meat which does not bother me one bit just gorgeous in the jar so now I want to show you how I go about finishing this soup um so that we can go ahead and eat it and what I generally do

Is I take um you can use milk you can use heavy cream you can use half and half you just use whatever you have on hand or whatever you prefer I’m going to be using just some canned milk and you can see this is from uh 2020 and my lid

Is starting to get just a little bit Rusty from being in storage so long and so I just really feel like I want to start using this stuff up but this is a really good testimony 2020 guys uh and that was 10 10 of 20 um so we’re well

Over 3 years on this canned milk so if you’re ever wondering how long canned milk will last here’s the proof all right well over three years anyway I generally for a court of the zapa tasana soup I use a pint of milk um now when I’m using cream cream is a lot richer

I’ll usually only use about a cup of cream if I’m going to do heavy cream or half and half but this is just plain milk I think this was whole milk so this is probably um it’s more like evaporated milk but I go ahead and when I’m using

Milk I use a full Pint or two cups so what I do is I just open My Soup find a nice little ledge here ah love those superb Lids did you hear that wonderful seal you guys I swear by this product absolutely fantastic superb look them up online beautiful beautiful lids and of

Course since I just canned this I know it’s good I don’t have to necessarily do the sniff test but generally whenever you open your canned goods always look listen number one for the seal look and make sure that there isn’t anything that look uh looks odd or off and then of

Course use your sense of smell but this is freshly can so all I’m going to do is I’m going to pour this wonderful jar of zppa Tuscana soup into my pan and I am going to heat that up and give it probably 5 to 10 minutes

Now now if this was in been storage for longer than what it has been it was just canned yesterday so I am not worried about anything at all but generally when I open up any low acid canned food I will boil it for 10 minutes just as an

Extra safety precaution and yes that does even include with a pressure caner all right if you look in your pressure caner manual um they actually even suggest that so this is not you know opening and boiling your low acid food um for 10 minutes is not just a hot

Water bath um thing to do they actually do suggest to do it with your um home pressure can goods too your low acid foods now high acid foods you don’t have to worry about but I will boil that boil that for like 5 or 10 minutes here today

And then I’m going to add the milk and then heat it just through and it will be done so I’m going to bring this up to a boil and then I will be back my soup has been really well heated and I just want to bring it over here because I really

Didn’t show you like what it looks like right straight out of the jar so before I add my milk I just want you to see how beautifully all of these ingredients hold up to the pressure canning process look at those absolutely fantastic chunks of potatoes you can see

The wonderful ground beef it’s not mushy or pasty the kale um you know has obviously cooked down but it is still holding together you guys this is just an absolutely wonderful wonderful soup so I have heated my soup well and now all I’m going to do is I’m just going to

Go ahead and I’m going to add my pint of canned milk that was a good seal too going to give this a sniff test oh wonderful wonderful wonderful just add that to my soup oh splashed that’s why my stove is always a mess you guys I’m a sloppy cook get that up

There all righty and then I’m just going to go ahead and I’m going to heat this for approximately another 5 or 10 minutes just until it’s really really well heated and ready to eat so at that point in time I will come back and put it in a bowl for

You all right so my soup is completely and thoroughly heated through that’s all there is to it honestly you guys this is like a meal in five minutes when you go to prepare it for your family so I’m just going to take and I’m going to go

Ahead and put some soup into a bowl for all of you get my mixing spoon out of the way here oh I’m telling you you guys this is as good if not better than um Olive Gardens zppa Tana all right this stuff is absolutely fantastic and as I said before maybe I

Better tip it down here just a little bit more as I said before you can just see that the ingredients you know putting those raw potatoes in there you guys they hold up so well look at that and the kale holds up well and the ground meat holds up

Well it’s not pasty it’s not mushy at all so this is the point in time that you obviously just get to either eat it as is or you can just embellish your soup however you want to I tend to enjoy a few little oyster crackers on

Mine I also like to put a little bit of grated cheese on mine and just a few two little sprinkles of parsley just for pretty on top look at that beautiful beautiful bowl of soup and like I said a meal in less than 5 minutes for your family upon

Opening that jar it’s just H you can’t beat it guys this is a good good thing so as always I will take a little taste test here although I know how wonderful it is this is actually one of my absolutely favorite home canned soups I just love this stuff and you know

We’re not huge fans of kale normally um you know we don’t just cook kale and put a pile of it on our plate alongside of you know a main dish or whatever but in this soup I am a huge fan of kale so give it a try

All right you you might find out you like it oh my goodness so so good I’m going to get a potato out here has a little cheese on it M mhm M you guys you need to chew that potato it’s not hard but it’s not overly soft just absolute perfection

Honestly so that is my recipe for zppa Tuscana soup base I hope you enjoyed it um I hope you enjoy it in your home um thanks for spending your time with me today God bless bless you all and Happy Canon Everybody