In the Kitchen with Ellen J Green- Zuppa Toscana #InTheKitchen #Recipes #ZuppaToscana

I first made this Zuppa Toscana, Olive Garden copycat recipe, just to try it out and see if I could get even slightly close to the savory, creamy kale, sausage and potato chowder served at the chain restaurant. 

Now it’s every other week addition to our household meals. It seems a bit heavy for summer, but maybe not! Both of my children asked for it the other day when the temperature was in the 90s, so you never know. You can play with it—hot or mild sausage, the amount of milk or cream added, amount of flour (depending on how thick you like it), peel the potatoes or leave skins on, add bacon if you like, cook separately, crumble and add in the last step, but it’s not necessary. 

But it is very quick, easy, with little clean-up. And delicious. 

Sausage and Potato Soup

Ingredients—

1 lb ground spicy or mild sausage, casings removed

1 medium onion (yellow, vedalia, even shallots or scallions will work)--dice

2 cloves garlic chopped

2 tbsp flour

32 oz chicken stock

4 or more russet potatoes (red potatoes are fine too. Whatever you have and whatever you like.) If you don’t like skins, peel. I always leave skins on—up to you. 

1 cup heavy cream (milk or half and half will work too. It just won’t be as creamy)

Kale (take stems out and rip into smaller pieces)

Salt and pepper

Red pepper flakes if desired. 

Instructions:

1. Heat a large dutch oven or heavy bottomed soup pot over MED-HIGH heat.  Add a small drizzle of oil, then add diced onion and sausage, crumbling as it cooks. After five minutes, add chopped garlic

2. Add chopped potatoes and stir. Continue stirring ingredients, making sure not to burn. Sprinkle flour over mixture and incorporate for 2 minutes.  Pour in chicken stock, stirring as you pour. 

3. Gently boil about 15 minutes, or until potatoes are fork-tender. Add heavy cream and kale when potatoes are tender.  Stir and cook 5-10 minutes until kale is wilted.

4. Taste and season with salt, pepper and red pepper flakes if desired. 

5. Enjoy!!

Murder in the Neighborhood—the story of the first mass shooting in the US

Ellen J. Green

Genre: True Crime

Publisher: Thread Books, Hachette UK

Date of Publication: 4/28/2022

ISBN13: 9781909770706

Number of pages: 324

Word Count: 85k

Cover Artist: Thread books

Book Description: 

On 6 September 1949, twenty-eight-year-old Howard Barton Unruh shot thirteen people in less than twelve minutes on his block in East Camden, New Jersey. The shocking true story of the first recorded mass shooting in America has never been told, until now.

The sky was cloudless that morning when twelve-year-old Raymond Havens left his home on River Road. His grandmother had sent him to get a haircut at the barbershop across the street—where he was about to witness his neighbor and friend Howard open fire on the customers inside.

Told through the eyes of young Raymond, who had visited Howard regularly to listen to his war stories, and the mother trying to piece together the disturbing inner workings of her son’s mind, Murder in the Neighborhood uncovers the chilling true story of Howard Unruh, the quiet loner who meticulously plotted his revenge on the neighbors who shunned him and became one of America’s first mass killers.

Amazon     Audible     AppleBooks

Excerpt:

That September morning started much like any other. Camden, New Jersey, the sparkling little sister of Philadelphia, connected by the high arches of the Delaware River Bridge, was waking up to heat nearing the mid-seventies—by nine o’clock the humidity was sitting high above the city, waiting to descend.

Cramer Hill, a small section of Camden, bound by the Delaware River to the west, the Pavonia Train Yard to the east, State Street to the south and 36th Street to the north—a grid of streets twenty-four blocks long, and about five or six blocks wide contained within—was about to draw the focus of the world but nobody knew it, not that morning at nine o’clock.

River Road cut a swath through Cramer Hill where open-bay trucks rumbled through all day long, overloaded with tomatoes headed for the Campbell’s soup factory a few miles away. The clearly visible cargo was only held in place by wire mesh caging along the sides. The loud engine sounds called to children to get out of the street, to stand and watch, waiting for a tomato to break loose and fall into their small hands. They were often rewarded when a bump in the road threw a few of the greenish-red fruits into the street.

The smells of the river wafting in, the sounds of the boats, the hint of tomatoes cooking at Campbell’s, the smoke from the stacks of Eavenson and Sons soap factory a mile away—it was all there. But mostly it was the shoemaker’s pungent aroma of tannery oils, the lingering, savory fragrance from Latela’s Italian luncheonette on the corner, the endless din of Engel’s bar across the street, and the music that poured out of its doors after the sun went down that filled every home.

Five businesses shared one side of the small block—a cacophonic mix of a pharmacy, a barbershop, a cobbler, a tailor and a café. The other side only had two: a grocery and a bar. Most of the owners lived there, nestled in their small apartments above their establishments. They all knew each other well enough on that small stretch of River Road. Enough to pull a chair out onto the sidewalk on summer nights for a chat. Enough to get a drink at Engel’s now and again. Enough to keep an eye on things and on each other. But not one of them saw it coming. Not the Pilarchiks, the Hoovers, the Hamiltons, the Zegrinos or the Cohens. They’d safely shared that space together for years, but not one of them was spared.

About the Author:

Ellen J. Green is the Amazon Charts bestselling author of the Ava Saunders novels (Absolution and Twist of Faith) and The Book of James. She attended Temple University in Philadelphia, where she earned her degrees in psychology, and has worked in the psychiatric ward of a maximum-security correctional facility for fifteen years. She also holds an MFA degree in creative writing from Fairleigh Dickinson University. Born and raised in Upstate New York, Ms. Green now lives in southern New Jersey with her two children.

Website https://ellenjgreen.com/

Twitter https://twitter.com/ejgreenbooks

Amazon Page https://amzn.to/3Hnikh2

Newsletter Sign Up https://ellenjgreen.com/newsletter/