Bittman's Zuppa Arcidossana

In today's Minimalist column, Mark Bittman has a terrific sounding recipe for Zuppa Arcidossana.

I see a couple of ways to make this into a vegetarian recipe. You could replace the four ounces of sausage with vegetarian sausage. Or you could just omit sausage altogether and season the soup with sausage seasoning -- fennel seed, marjoram, thyme, nutmeg, red pepper flakes. You could substitute four ounces of garbanzo or white beans for the sausage and also add sausage seasoning. Or, as Bittman suggests in the video, you could simply leave out the sausage.