LuceStellare

Recipe – Sweet Italian Sausage Tortellini Soup

12 ounces Sweet Italian Sausage
Olive Oil
Fresh garlic – to taste
Fresh shallot – to taste
½ cup dry white wine
42 ounces low fat, unsalted chicken broth
18 ounces three cheese tortellini
Diced tomatoes (14 ounce canned)
6 ounces baby spinach
1 Tablespoon unsalted butter
Salt to taste

Heat a Dutch Oven with olive oil and cook sausage thoroughly.

Remove from pan and cut into smaller pieces, set aside.

Add more olive oil and when it is shimmering, add minced garlic and shallot, cook for about 30 seconds. Add wine and broth bringing to a rolling boil. Let the broth deglaze the bottom of the oven. Cook for 3-4 minutes.

Gently add the tortellini to the liquid and cook for 3-4 minutes.

Stir in tomatoes and spinach. I used diced canned tomatoes with zesty jalapeno peppers to give it some heat. Cook until the spinach wilts.

Return sautéed sausage to the soup and cook for an additional 5 minutes. At the very end, add the butter.

Serve and Enjoy!

Luce Stellare ~ Starlight

It was early morning looking west to see the great gibbous moon sinking in the sky. As she descended, her worth had been revealed. What a power she has had! What a calamity she has caused! What she has revealed! What a mess has been made! The dark side of the circle has been out. The squirming, clinging, wrecking ways of the righteous and bored.

I said ask! The arrogant kept going. I said ASK! The worst has been revealed. In salvation, it can be said, behind the veil what was small became smaller. The savior became just another sinner. The weak whined and the obsessed merrily pilfered away. All for what. Che pazzia!

Luce Stellare settles over everything. In the moment of bitter surprise, she came in. Under the enchantment came the reprise. Thee are born again through Stella Maris. In the moment of undoing she glided in under the guise of a swan. All white, feeding quietly in the warmth of late morning light. Floating all soft in the still air. The moon settled in the water and the goddess arose once again. Remember me.

O Me! O Life! ~ Walt Whitman

Oh me! Oh life! of the questions of these recurring,
Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish,
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew’d,
Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,
Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?

Answer. That you are here—that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse

Source: Leaves of Grass (1892) by Walt Whitman