And now a photographic account of cooking tonight’s vegetarian Italian sausage and potato soup that no one asked for...

First cook up some vegetarian/vegan hot Italian sausage, and slice it into coins. I used Beyond this time. Sometimes I use No Evil.

If you cook the sausage in the soup pot, you can use the leftover grease and fat in your soup. Add some butter and minced garlic, and cook up some mirepoix in it.

I didn’t mention all the prep, so hopefully you read this whole thread before starting. Slice up a bag of little potatoes into medallions. Throw a layer of them into a bowl, add salt and oregano, toss to cover them. Repeat layer by layer for all of them.

But don’t slice them entirely. Dice up the stubby ends of the potatoes very small and separate them from the slices.

As the mirepoix begins to soften and cooks off its moisture, add a bit of veggie stock to keep the party going.

If you like, cover the pot for a bit to let the mirepoix soften more without drying out.

This gives you a moment to mince up some fresh parsley! (Not Italian parsley!) Separate into two halves, more or less.

Add the minced potatoes and half the parsley to the mirepoix broth!

If you want to get a little wild, use an immersion blender to turn the minced potatoes and mirepoix into a thick soup base. This isn’t totally necessary.

Add the sliced potatoes and rest of the veggie broth...

Add a container of heavy whipping cream.

Add the sliced sausages!

Add the rest of the parsley.

You can season it however you like. I’ve sort of been leaving out some of those basic seasoning steps. But I suggest adding way more fresh ground black peppercorn than you think is necessary.

Mix it all up and let it cook. It looks kinda like this. (Added various other Italian spices including a few red pepper flakes.)

When you leave it cooking for a bit, it begins to bubble, and the orange sausage grease pools on the top. Don’t let it boil too violently, and periodically stir this grease back in.

How do you know when it’s done? One of the first things you’ll look for is the potato medallions to soften and flex. (It’s hard to see in this picture.) This means it’s making progress.

The next phase is when some of the potato medallions begin to fall apart. Look for the tell-tale potato skin rings peeling off. If your slices were not completely even, the thicker ones will not yet be cooked enough.

Eventually the soup will thicken, and all of the potatoes will be soft enough to fall apart. You can actually stop cooking earlier than this if you prefer your potatoes to have a lot of bite. I don’t.

You can carefully try to taste the liquid part of the soup, although it is VERY HOT so be careful with your tongue and mouth. You might find that you need yet again far more black pepper.

Finally we’re where we started the thread. The soup is ready, so throw some in a bowl and added some shredded or shaved Parmesan, Romano, Asiago, or what have you to the top of it. Have it with some Italian bread or saltines.