The November day when daylight savings starts is my least favorite day of the year. This is my thirteenth year in Ohio, and I still get sort of blindsided by the shorter days and early sunsets. Not that daylight savings doesn’t happen in the rest of the country, but I feel its effect more here.

This year, in an effort to both battle against and brace myself for the encroaching 5PM darkness, I cranked up the volume on The Soul Album and made a huge pot of soup. (Also because I welcome any opportunity to use my Le Creuset stock pot.)

So I had a rather large zucchini squash and knew my mom had this recipe for an Italian soup with tortellini and zucchini. I changed her recipe a bit, so we will call this:

Fight Daylight Savings Soup

Here’s what you need:

• 1 large zucchini squash, diced
• 1 large yellow squash, diced
• 3/4 ish c. onion, diced
• 3/4 ish c. carrot, diced
• 2-3 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 28 oz can crushed/diced tomatoes (just don’t buy the can of whole tomatoes, unless you have an immersion blender)
• 1 lb Italian or hot sausage (apparently Italian sausage was a hot commodity when I went to the grocery, so I settled with Bob Evan’s Zesty Hot sausage, which actually gave the soup a nice kick)
• 3 c. tortellini
• 1 tsp dried basil
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• salt and pepper to taste
• fresh parsley, chopped
• grated parmesan
• desire to show daylight savings who’s boss

Obviously the Reese’s cups weren’t part of the soup, but hurray for discounted Halloween candy (a major help in the fight against dark days)!

Simmer the onion, carrots, garlic, and broth for 30 minutes. I said “3/4 ish cup” for the onions and carrots because I don’t measure too strictly (or at all) unless I’m baking. My mom’s recipe uses a half cup of each, but I like a heartier soup (sidebar: is “hearty” the most-used adjective to describe soups?) so I chopped a little more. Boo is always very curious what’s happening in the kitchen.

While that simmers, sauté the sausage until cooked through. When your thirty minutes are up, add the diced squash, sausage, can of tomatoes (and juice), basil, oregano, salt, and pepper. So when I said I don’t really measure, that also applied to the spices. I didn’t measure those, I just added as I tasted, but would estimate I put about a teaspoon of basil and oregano each.

I diced the squash up fairly small, because while I do like to have a full soup, I don’t like having huge chunks of veggies and other ingredients. I also added some water, as the soup was getting pretty thick.

Simmer for another hour and a half, or longer. I let mine simmer for quite a few hours because I just wasn’t ready for dinner after an hour and a half. When you’re ready to eat, add the tortellini and let it cook for another 10 minutes or so. They like to stay floating up at the top.

And finally, garnish with fresh, chopped parsley and/or grated parmesan and an “F you daylight savings!”

I’ve found that the tortellini really thickens up the soup a lot after storing the leftovers. Next time, I may just add the tortellini for each meal. Enjoy!