January 2011 CSA Recipe - Sausage, Kale and Potato Soup

I think the best part of a snow storm blowing around outside is getting to experiment in the kitchen inside.  Since I was unable to get out today, I decided it was time to make something with my winter share box today.  I received a bunch of kale in the box and I kept thinking about how to pair it with sausage.   I created this recipe to see how they will go together.  I think the result is an easy soup that tastes great.  I used pork sausage but you can use turkey or chicken as a substitute, just make sure it is the Italian sausage flavored ones. I used all organic ingredients, but conventional will taste just as good.

Makes 4 dinner sized portions of soup
Ingredients:

1 TBS Olive Oil
1 lb organic Italian sausage in the casing, cut into one inch rounds
1 organic Shallot, small diced
1 large organic carrot or 4 small organic carrots, small diced
3 small stalks of organic celery, diced
4 cups of organic chicken stock
1 cup water
1/2 bunch organic kale, stems removed and leaves cut ino small pieces
5 small organic potatoes, diced
1 tsp dried organic thyme
1 organic Bay leaf
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper

Here's how:

Heat a large pot on the stove with 1 TBS olive oil.

Cut the sausage into one inch rounds.


Sliced sausage

Brown the sausage in the hot pan.  This should take about 5-10 minutes.

Sausage in the pan, ready to brown

Remove the browned sausage and place it in a bowl on the side.

Dice the shallots, carrots and celery.

Diced shallot

Small carrots, fine dice them

Finely diced carrots

Add the shallots, carrots and celery to the pan.  Sautee for 3-5 minutes.  Do not brown them.

Veggies sauteing

Add one cup of chicken stock to the veggies in the pan.  Use a wooden spoon to scrape the brown bits off the bottom of the pot.  This is where the flavors are.

Add the rest of the stock, water, kale, potatoes, thyme, bay leaf, salt and pepper to the pot.  Add the sausage back to the pot.  Cook for 45 minutes to one hour until the potatoes and kale are soft.

Kale, stems removed and cleaned

Diced potatoes

Soups done.