Subtitle: "Or How Did I Get Here From Where I Started?"
I have noticed that on the rare nights my darling daughter actually sleeps through, I feel better (shocking, I know). If I actually string two of those nights together, I get practically giddy. I start thinking about all of this stuff I could do now, like cleaning out the entire basement or cooking everything from scratch. As I was sitting down over the weekend menu planning, I figured I should use some of the vegetables I have sitting in the kitchen from the veggie delivery I get weekly. I poked around and found a recipe for soup that used sweet potatoes, onions, and kale. It also used sausage, which oddly enough I had. After looking at evening schedules for the week, I decided Wednesday would be the best night to make this.
So, Wednesday night comes. The boy is at school with DH so that he can be a rooster in his play. The girl was at home with me, watching her beloved Max & Ruby. Since I knew the kids wouldn't eat the soup, I was cooking some sausage for them and making mashed potatoes with some cauliflower shoved in (I needed to use both anyway). Long story short, I walk into the kitchen at 6:00, manage to produce the sausage and mashed potatoes at 6:45 (which the girl refused to eat), and ladled the soup up at 7:45. It's like I entered some black hole where things took much, much longer than I thought they would. But OMG, that soup was so good. I don't remember the last time I liked soup so much.
So here's the recipe, then I get to explaining the subtitle.
Sweet Potato, Sausage, and Kale Soup
Yield: 10 servings (serving size about 1 3/4 cups)
2 tbls olive oil
4 cups chopped onion (about 2 large)
1 teas salt, divided
1/2 teas crushed red pepper
6 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 pound sweet turkey Italian sausage
8 cups coarsely chopped peeled sweet potato (about 2 1/4 lbs)
5 cups water
4 cups fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
1 (16-oz) package prewashed torn kale
1 (16-oz) can cannellini beans or other white beans, rinsed and drained
Heat oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add onion, saute 5 minutes. Add 1/2 teas salt, pepper, and garlic, saute 1 minute. Remove casings from sausage, add sausage to pan. Cook 5 minutes or until sausage is lightly browned, stirring to crumble. Add potato, 5 cups water, and broth; bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer 8 minutes. Gradually add kale, cook 10 minutes or until tender. Stir in remaining 1/2 teas salt and beans, cook 5 minutes or until thoroughly heated.
Calories 254 (29% from fat); Fat 8.2g (sat 2.1g, mono 3.4g, poly 1.4g); Iron 2.9mg; Cholesterol 27mg; Calcium 132 mg; Carbohydrate 34.8g; Sodium 797 mg; Protein 14.2; Fiber 6.9g
from Cooking Light, March 2007
So, I tried to cut the recipe in half, but ended up putting more sausage (3/4 lb) and beans (the whole can) than I should have. I used red onions, which normally I don't like but I had 2 from the veggie delivery. I used regular sausage from my dairy delivery. I put in 4 cups of turkey stock that I made after Thanksgiving (with turkey and veggies from the dairy/veggie delivery) and 1/2 cup water. I cut the kale up because I don't like large pieces of it in my spoon. Some of the comments on the website I found the recipe on suggested pureeing the soup (minus the sausage) to make it creamy. I wasn't going to that effort, but I did pull out the potato masher and mashed things up a little.
After thinking about it, I realized almost everything in the soup was local and organic, and it was soup full of veggies. When I first got married, we ate a lot of Hamburger Helper, and as recently as 4 years ago DH had to ask for me to fix vegetables. I didn't like most of them, so I didn't purchase or prepare them often. Now we get a weekly delivery of a small bag of veggies, and I've been trying new ways of cooking them. I had almost written off kale until this recipe. I really shouldn't have tackled this on a weekday, or at least prepped the vegetables the night before, but otherwise I'm damned impressed with myself.
I have to go now. Very late for work.
3 comments:
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You go, girl! I am impressed! It sounds like a good soup. I have never cooked with kale but am open to the idea. I wish I liked sweet potatoes. They are so much better for you than regular ones, which of course I love and use too much.
I LOVE every single ingredient in that--although I admit it would have never occurred to me to use sweet potatoes in a soup. I am so going to copy that out and make it some time!
What do you think about cross-posting the recipe (indeed the whole post) on the other blog under the "Foodie/Recipes" tag? Or I could do it. Kale is delicious just torn into bite-size pieces and sauteed in olive oil with some garlic. I've also sauteed cumin or crushed oriander seeds in the olive oil first, set aside, and then tossed with the sauteed kale. Kale can also be substituted in any recipe you might put chopped spinach in--like soups, casseroles and pasta sauces. There might be some Kale recipes on the other blog already...just do a search of the posts using the "foodie/recipe" tag (could be listed with obvious "kale" refs, or described in one of our "I cooked a fabulous dinner/party" posts. There are also lots of side-bar links to good recipe sites.
I do know there are several posts there for swiss chard, which, Trisha, might be something you get occasionally with your veggie shipment. I do find that the greens in most recipes using greens of some kind are interchangeable. There are subtle flavor differences, and some things may need to be cooked less or longer to be tender (or not mushy), but I think that's a broadly true statement.
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