Kale and sausage soup

 

I tried this recipe when I took a week off to bake cookies and such, knowing that by supper time I'd have blown away the kitchen and just want food ready and waiting, as this slow cooker book says.

Portuguese Kale and Sausage Soup

Adapted from “Ready and Waiting” by Rick Rodgers

Ingredients

8 ounces sausages, such as chorizo, linguiҫa if you can find it, or kielbasa

¼ cup olive oil, divided

1 large onion, chopped

4 garlic cloves, minced

3 cups water

2 ⅔ cup chicken broth

3 medium potatoes, unpeeled, chopped into ½-inch pieces

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

4 cups chopped sturdy greens, such as kale, beet greens, etc.

Method

Remove any casings from sausages and fry up in a large, deep skillet, breaking up with a spatula. When brown, remove from heat and store in refrigerator until ready to use later in the recipe.

Add 2 tablespoons olive oil to any drippings left in the pan. Cook onions and garlic over medium heat until softened. Transfer to a large slow cooker. Add water, broth, potatoes, salt and red pepper flakes. Cover and cook on low for 6 to 7 hours until potatoes are tender. Mash up a few of the potatoes against the side of the slow cooker to thicken soup slightly. Add sausages and greens and cook for another 30 minutes to an hour until greens are tender. Serve drizzled with the remaining olive oil.

Rating: Fine enough, although it was better reheated once the flavors had more time to meld. Respectable warm food, but not as good as my usual recipe for kale sausage soup. 

But it was really nice to have soup simmering on the crockpot after my upteenth batch of peanut butter M&M cookies. Christmas comes but once a year, but it seems to last pretty much forever. A decent soup helps with the slog through, and the leftovers helped when I was on week 3 and counting. Enough already.

We did take a break from the madness to rewatch "Love Actually" at the Parkway. If we hadn't bought tickets in advance there's no way I would have made myself go out on a cold rainy night when I was frantically behind. But by the time I had a nice malbec in front of me at Pizza Biga for a pre-movie supper, I decided it was just fine.