Recipe: Kale, White Bean, and Sausage Soup

Happy New Year!

The past few weeks have been filled with Christmas celebrations and it has been great to see everyone! It’s also been great because I have gotten to try some new foods. My adaptation of Kale and Sausage Soup comes partly from Jodi Kramer’s excellent soup she brought to our clinic get together. If you have ever had the Zuppa Tuscana at Olive Garden, this is pretty darn close.

Since its cold out, I like to make and eat soup. In fact, I would probably eat soup everyday if I could and from this giant pot I made tonight, it looks like I will be!

Ingredients

Onion -medium

Garlic -4ish gloves

Kale – one small bunch chopped to bite sized pieces

Potatoes – 1.5 lbs baking potatoes, sliced thinly.

Italian Sausage – 1 lb (I used the real kind, NOT the low fat kind, nobody has time for that!)

White Beans – Optional; and I used one can of Organic Great Northern Beans, but any white bean will do.

10 cups Chicken Stock – I used some homemade stock, but you could just use the box kind or vegetable stock would work too.

Cream – 1 cup Half and Half or Whipping Cream.

 

 

Process

Chop up the onion to 1 inch pieces

Slice the Garlic

Cut up the Kale to your desired size

In a LARGE pot, on medium heat brown up the Sausage. Take it out of the pan when browned and place it in a bowl. Throw in your onions and garlic. Cook those up for about 5 minutes until you can smell them throughout your house. Add back in the sausage, stock, beans and potatoes. Bring your super full pot to a boil. It took mine about 15 minutes to come to a rapid boil. Let it simmer until the potatoes are done to your liking. I like to take my sweet time cooking and I like my potatoes falling apart so it took about an additional 25 minutes after it started to simmer.

Once your potatoes are done add one cup of cream and the kale. Let it warm-up for about 5 minutes and it’s ready to eat. We ate it with some left over Rosemary bread we had on New Year’s Eve. It was delish.

What do you make to keep you warm during the winter?

 

Happy New Year,

– Kaitlen