Olive Garden Night! Plus, a few recipes!!

At work we found a cook book titled "America's Most Wanted Recipes." This is a fantastic cook book. It has recipes from Applebees, Benihana, The Cheesecake Factory, Chili's Olive Garden, Macaroni Grill, Outback, etc. Deron and I have been trying to figure out the recipe for the soup from Olive Garden, Zuppa Toscana, for a long time. Finally, this book has the recipe. So we decided that tonight we would make the soup and the bread sticks. It turned out pretty good. While obviously the real thing is still the best, this is definitely a close second. Here are the recipes!


















Olive Garden - Zuppa Toscana (serves 4)

1 lb. Italian sausage
8 oz. smoked bacon, chopped
4 C. water
2- 14.5 oz cans chicken broth
2 lg russet potatoes, scrubbed and cubed
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 medium onion, chopped
2 C. chopped kale or swiss chard
1 C. heavy cream
Salt and Pepper

1. in a skillet over med. heat, brown the sausage, breaking into small pieces; drain and set aside (make sure to remove the casing)
2. in a separate skillet, fry the bacon until brown, drain and set aside. ( i used the same skillet)
3. combine the water, broth, potatoes, garlic and onions in a pot; simmer over med. heat until the potatoes are tender 10-15 min.
4. Add the sausage and the bacon, simmer for 10 min.
5. Add cream and kale. Season with salt and pepper to taste and simmer until soup is heated through. Do not allow to boil.


The soup turned out really good. We cut our potatoes bigger than what the restaurant does, but the flavors are still there. If you want it thicker, add a little cornstarch at the end.







Olive Garden - Bread Sticks

1 loaf frozen bread dough
Cooking Spray
Garlic Powder
Dried Oregano

1. Allow the dough to thaw at room temperature in a large greased mixing bowl.
2. When the dough is soft enough to knead, break off pieces and shape into cigar-sized sticks.
3. Places these 3 inches apart on sprayed cookie sheets. Let rise in a warm place until doubled in size, about 1 hour 15 min
4. Preheat over to 375
5. Holding the can of cooking spray about 8 inches from the sticks, lightly spray the top of each stick, dust with garlic powder and sprinkle with oregano.
6. bake for 20-25 min until golden brown
7. let cool on the cookie sheets for a few min. before serving.


The bread sticks were not the right shape, and we could not get them to be sticks. They were not greasy like olive gardens, but they were still good.