My family loved this..the guys all went back for seconds! I did sauté a thinly sliced a Vidalia onion along with the garlic. I used the florets from one broccoli stalk and 1 1/2 cups of frozen peas, as that's what was on hand, sauted along with the red pepper flakes in the skillet with the sausage after it was browned. Added @1/2 cup pasta water when combining the the pasta, sausage, and veggies. Served with hot garlic cheesy bread. Yum!

Reviewed On: Nov. 7, 2012

Grilled extra sausage for a meal recently and froze it. Stumbled upon this recipe and used that grilled sausage, sliced up, for this recipe. Made the soup making a snap! Stored the tortellini separately as suggested. My gang loved this soup with warmed Italian bread.

Reviewed On: Nov. 3, 2012

Tweaked it...loved it! Used toasted walnuts instead of hazelnuts, which I never have on hand, and used 1/2 cup melted unsalted butter and 1/2 cup applesauce instead of 1 cup melted butter. Grated the apple instead of chopping it. Also increased amounts of chopped fresh cranberries and dried figs once batter was complete as our crew likes lots of goodies in their muffins. Topped batter in one muffin pan with raw/turbinado sugar for a sweet 'n crunchy topping. We're working on those first as I find the surface of stored baked goods with sugar topping tends to get 'wet' as the sugar dissolves from the moisture in the baked goods. Baked in 2 silicone large-size muffin pans (got 12 muffins out of the batch) for 23 minutes. Whatever is leftover will be frozen individually for grab-n-go breakfasts. It shouldn't take them all that long to thaw. I think I want to try chopped banana in the next batch. Yum!

Reviewed On: Nov. 3, 2012