Healthier Living Plan - 01/14/2018 - Sausage, Bean & Kale Soup

Only 2 meals today but boy they were worth cooking and eating. Got to spend some quality time with my main squeeze and my son.

For brunch (In Alabama we call it a late breakfast) we cooked us up some stone ground grits from North Carolina, some smoked, uncured, organic turkey bacon made from the thighs of virgin turkeys. We served it with homemade fig preserves over toasted and buttered sprouted grain bread. It was some count. That bacon is like turkey jerky.



Despite having to get up at 0300 this morning and having to work from home monitoring a plant start-up, we still had time to run some errands and make it home to have some fun fixing a nice Italian country style soup tonight with:

Smoked sausage, dry beans, kale, carrots, sweet onions, celery, chicken stock, fresh garlic, red pepper flakes and spices. We served it with warm, fresh baked, crusty Italian bread, soft salted butter and a nice Cabernet. Nice dinner on a cold winter night.

Looks good!

Jealous once again.

Need the recipe for the soup my man.

We had some dried pinto beans, but I think the soup would be more traditional with some cannellini (white) beans.

1 pound dried beans
1 pound smoked sausage
1 onion
3 carrots
2 celery stalks
About as much Kale as you can cram in the pot towards the end?
Chopped garlic
Italian seasoning blend
Parsley
Red pepper flakes
Salt
Pepper
3-4 cans of chicken stock (I used 2 boxes of stock)

Prepare the dried beans (boil, the let soak for an hour, drain water, add more water and salt and then simmer for about another hour) or use about 3-4 cans of beans
Slice up the sausage into about 1/8" slices and brown in some olive oil.
While you're doing that chop the veggies.
Add the veggies, garlic and and seasonings to the sausage and cook all that until the veggies just start to get tender. It should smell fantastic about this time.
Add all that to the beans and then add the chicken stock. I think I had a 6 quart pot.
Bring all that to a boil and let simmer for about 45 minutes.
I bought some Kale in a big plastic bag that was already chopped and washed and I think crammed about half the bag in the pot to where it was about to fall out the sides. Don't worry. This stuff will cook way down and it's good as hell for you.
Get all that back to a boil and let simmer for another 30 minutes.
Taste it along the way and adjust seasonings to your liking.
Serve with a nice red wine, some warm French or Italian bread the crustier the better and some soft salted butter.

If you use canned beans you can do this all in one pot, by sauteing the sausage in the pot first then adding the veggies and then adding the drained beans and chicken stock and then it becomes a one pot meal.

How do you tell if the turkey's a virgin or not?

I put some stuff in there to see if anyone actually reads my stupid posts...

*LOL* sooo...a non-virgin turkey would be okay?
What about one that maybe fooled around, some, but didn't actually go all the way?

Absolutely no slutty turkeys.