Sunday Supper: Italian Pasta and Bean Soup With Sausage

Serves 8.

Note: Pasta e Fagioli — Italian pasta and bean soup — becomes a meal-in-a-pot with the addition of sweet sausage and fresh spinach. Using canned beans speeds up cooking. From "Good Housekeeping Cookbook Sunday Dinner Collector's Edition."

• 1 lb. sweet Italian-sausage links, casings removed

• 1 tbsp. olive oil

• 2 medium onions, chopped

• 2 garlic cloves, crushed with garlic press

• 1 (28 oz.) can plum tomatoes

• 2 c. water

• 3 (15 to 19 oz. each) cans Great Northern or white kidney (cannellini) beans, rinsed and drained

• 1 rounded cup small macaroni

• 5 oz. spinach, washed and dried very well, tough stems trimmed, and leaves cut into 1-in.-wide strips

• Parmesan cheese, freshly grated, optional

Heat a nonreactive 5-quart Dutch oven over medium-high heat until very hot. Add sausage and cook until well browned, breaking up sausage with the side of a spoon. Transfer sausage to bowl.

Reduce heat to medium; add oil to Dutch oven. Add onions and cook until tender and golden, about 10 minutes. Add garlic; cook 1 minute. Add tomatoes with their juice, breaking them up with side of spoon.

Add broth and 2 cups water; heat to boiling over high heat. Reduce heat; cover and simmer 15 minutes. Add beans and heat to boiling; cover and simmer 15 minutes longer. Add sausage and heat through.

Meanwhile, in 4-quart saucepan, cook pasta as label directs, but do not add salt to water; drain.