Choose Your Points Soup!!!

Who doesn't love Olive Garden?

Everything about it feels decadent

The portions are ginormous and the food, well, it's just plain good ol' comfort food.

In my pre-WW days I would never have ordered the salad before my meal.

I always ordered the Zuppa Toscana soup which is a potato, kale and sausage soup.

For me, this is one of the quintessential fall and winter comfort foods.

Cold outside and inside through and through?

Time for some Zuppa!

Given that I'm also weight and health conscious I decided to make something similar for myself and slim it down a bit.

There are numerous other recipes on the internet that you can find but this is a bit different.

I'm using celeriac instead of potatoes.

Gasp!

Listen, if you've never tried celery root(celeriac) then you really need to at least give it a try.

Think about this too-

Celeriac = 0 pts

One medium Yukon Gold potato = 4 pts

BIG difference!

Sometimes you just gotta have the potatoes but right now is not one of those times for me.

I'm planning on having a date day with my husband Monday so I'm trying to save up weekly's before that day comes.

Now, let's talk turkey.

Once again I decided to make my own Italian turkey sausage using 99% fat free ground turkey and this recipe.

1 lb of 99% fat free turkey = 6 pts

1 lb of Italian turkey sausage = 16-21 pts depending on what brand you buy.  Jennie O = 17 pts!

That is a HUGE difference!!!!

Again, if you want the full fat I'm not criticizing.  It's all a matter of preference and you get to decide how you want to spend your points.

For me, it's not worth it.

And now we're off to the kitchen!

Ingredients

1 celeriac(about 2 1/2 cups peeled and cubed into 1/2 inch pieces.  The one I bought was the size of a large grapefruit before peeling.)

64 oz low sodium fat free chicken broth

1 medium yellow onion diced

2 tsp minced garlic

8 pieces of Hormel Black Label precooked bacon cut or torn into bite sized pieces

8 oz thinly sliced portabella mushrooms(no, this is not in zuppa Toscana but I love mushrooms and they're a wonderful 0 pt filler)

2 cups roughly chopped kale(with spines removed)

1 lb of ground turkey with Italian turkey sausage seasoning

This makes 4 large servings at comes out to 3 pts.

Optional

If you want to add potatoes I would add 4 medium Yukon Gold.  I would peel and cube these and then boil them.  You could boil them with the celeriac if you want to blend all of it for a base but if you want to have some separate whole pieces of potato in your soup you'll need to either cut them into slices(so you can distinguish them from the celeriac) or boil them in a separate container.  I think if I were going to use potatoes I would blend two of them and keep two in chunks for the soup.

Adding 4 potatoes = total of 7 pts per serving

3 potatoes = 6 pts

2 potatoes = 5 pts

1 potato = 4 pts


Back to the star of the day, celeriac.

First cut the green stalks off then start supreming this.  Supreming is to cut off the ends and then with your knife cut the skin off.  

Here's a peek~

Put the cubed celeriac into the chicken broth and boil for at least 20 minutes or until very soft.  

Then use a hand blender to emulsify this to a creamy consistency.  Be careful please!  Either let it cool before you blend or use something to shield yourself so you don't get burned with boiling hot broth.

In a separate pan saute the onion for 12-15 minutes using broth to prevent scorching and sticking(I didn't feel like spending pts on olive oil).  

Then add in the garlic and cook two more minutes.  Next add the turkey Italian sausage and brown.  

Add the mushrooms and cook for ten minutes.  .  

Add the turkey mixture to the celeriac mixture.  Throw in the kale and bacon and cook for 5 more minutes.  

And so there you have it, a ginormous bowl of 3 pt soup.  

Don't forget to add pts should you decide to use the potatoes or the regular store bought turkey Italian sausage instead of making it yourself.  It would also be good with fat free evaporated or skim milk.  Just remember to adjust the points.  

That's one of my favorite things about this plan.  You get to choose how you spend your points as you go.  This soup is very flexible.  You can make it very light like I did for 3 pts or go for something more decadent if you're craving it.  

Oh, if you're wondering, one serving of the soup at Olive Garden is 8 pts.  Keep in mind their serving sizes are significantly smaller than what I did here.  

Truth time~  

Did this taste like Olive Garden's zuppa?  Not so much.  The textures were the same but the flavor is different.  

However, even though it's different I still like it.  

It's still good and it still satisfied my craving and my husband told me twice that he liked it.  

I think he's really coming on board with healthier eating.  He wants to make good choices now just like I do.  

Even my son is echoing comments I make and consciously choosing healthier options.

That alone makes all this worth it for me.  :)

Here's to something good and warm to look forward to as days get shorter and nights get colder.

Happy Cooking!