Italian Sausage and Tortellini Soup

This is another recipe I have my mom to thank for. I don't know where she found it, but she has shared it with me. Thank my lucky stars for that! It's wonderful. This is a great addition to any meal. We had a couple families over for dinner tonight, and they all loved the soup. I think the soup Nazi from Seinfeld would approve of this soup.

Italian Sausage and Tortellini soup:
yield: 12 servings

1 lb Italian sausage
1 c chopped onion
2 cloves garlic, minced
4 13 oz cans beef broth
14 oz can crushed tomatoes
14 oz diced tomatoes
1 c sliced carrots
1/2 t basil
1/2 t oregano
1 T parsley
1 c sliced zucchini
9 oz package cheese tortellini

Cook Italian Sausage in a large stockpot over medium heat. Cook the Italian sausage until it is no longer pink. Break it up into smaller pieces while it is cooking. You can see the size of the chunks I did in the picture below. One thing I should mention- I didn't have mild Italian sausage on hand, but I had the hot Italian Sausage. It definitely came out hot! It had a lot of kick to it. If you like kick, use the hot sausage. If you're not too keen on hotness or have an acid reflux issue, you may want to use mild.
Remove the sausage. Add the chopped onion and garlic to the pan- cooking in the drippings from the meat.
Add the sausage, beef broth, and tomatoes.
Add the carrots. That orange blur is a carrot falling out of my hand. It kind of looks like I have a ghost carrot growing out of my ring finger. I promise that is not the case!
Add the basil, oregano, and parsley. Stir it up. Bring it to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes, covered.
After the 30 minutes, add the zucchini and tortellini. Cover it again and simmer for 20-25 minutes. Sprinkle it with Parmesan Cheese if you can't function without cheese in a course. :)