Spicy Sausage Potato Kale Soup

Spicy Sausage Potato Kale Soup
Adapted from The Candid Appetite

This soup is very simple to make and tastes delicious. This is another soup recipe I will be making quite often. This recipe does not require a lot of seasonings because most of the aromatics comes from the turkey sausages. This soup is practically a complete meal in itself with the turkey sausages, potatoes and kale. The heavy cream adds a nice richness to the soup without being too heavy. With some crusty whole-wheat French bread, it's a very satisfying meal. And makes a good breakfast soup.

1 to 1.22 pounds sweet or hot Italian TURKEY sausages, casings removed
1 large yellow onion, finely chopped (about 9.8 ounces)
3 large garlic cloves, finely minced (about 0.6 ounce)
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper (or to taste)
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (or to taste)
3 bunches of Lacinato kale, stemmed and thinly sliced (about 14.4 ounces)
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
4 medium-size or 2 large-size Yukon gold potatoes, UNpeeled and thinly sliced; then soaked in water to cover until needed (about 2 to 2.25 pounds)
8 cups Swanson brand 33% Less-Sodium Chicken Broth (64 ounces)
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream (4 ounces)

Heat a 6-quart stock pot over medium-high heat (8.0 on induction cook top) until hot. Brown the turkey sausages in a tablespoon of olive oil until browned, breaking up sausages as it is browning. If there are a lot of liquid released from the sausages, turn up heat to high heat and continue cooking. When all the liquid have evaporated, reduce heat back to medium-high heat. When sausages are done cooking, transfer sausages to a colander to drain. Set aside.

Using the same pot and over medium-high heat, add 2 tablespoons of olive oil to the pot. Add the onions and garlic. Continue to cook on medium-high heat, stirring frequently and scraping the browned bits from the bottom of the pot. Add salt, pepper and red pepper flakes. Continue to cook until onions are soft and lightly browned, about 3 to 5 minutes. Add the kale in 3 batches, allowing each batch to wilt down as it cooks. Stir in the nutmeg. Continue to cook the kale for another 3 minutes or until it turns bright green and completely wilted down. Stir in the sliced potatoes (drained) and turkey sausages.

Pour in the chicken stock and bring soup to a boil. Lower heat to a simmer (gradually 4.0 to 2.6 on induction cook top) and continue to simmer, covered, for about 20 to 25 minutes or when potatoes are cooked tender. Taste to add more seasonings to your liking. For my taste, I only added another teaspoon of ground black pepper and no additional salt was necessary. Stir in the heavy cream. Increase heat to medium heat (5.0 on induction cook top). When soup starts to come to a boil, immediately turn off heat. Soup is ready to enjoy with some whole-wheat French bread smeared with some coconut oil.

Yield 6 to 8 servings

Vegetarian Split Pea Soup
Adapted from Everyday Foods

I really love this vegetarian version of split pea soup. This soup has so much flavor on its own without having to depend on smoked turkey drumstick (or smoke ham shank) for flavor. This recipe will make a very large quantity. You can either cut the soup recipe in half or you can make the full recipe, portion it into containers and freeze it. Since this soup is vegetarian, I even have this soup for breakfast, and again for dinner the same day. It's that delicious and good for you!

2 pounds dried split peas, rinsed well and drain
4 quarts water (16 cups)
2-1/4 pounds russet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch pieces (2 extra-large potatoes)
1 pound carrots, peeled and thickly sliced
3 medium-size red bell peppers, seeds and membrane discarded and finely chopped (1:3.1 pounds)
2 large yellow onion, finely chopped (1:6.0 pounds)
2 large celery stalks, finely chopped (5.1 ounces)
4 large garlic cloves, finel minced (0.8 ounce)
2 teaspoons dried thyme
1 large dried bay leaf
3 to 4 teaspoons salt or to taste
1-1/2 teaspoons ground black pepper or to taste

Combine all the ingredients, except the salt and ground black pepper, into a 10-quart or larger stock pot. Bring the soup to a boil over high heat (Pb on induction cook top). Reduce heat to a simmer (2.4 to 2.0 on induction cook top) and cook for 3 hours, covered, stirring occasionally and skimming away foam from the surface as needed (I don't bother with the skimming, if you stir occassionally, the foam will eventually cook out). During the last hour of cooking time, continue to stir occasionally and smashing a few chunks of potatoes against the sides of the pot each time you stir.

When cooking time is up, the soup will become thicker and peas will be cooked down. Add the salt and ground black pepper to taste.

Remove from heat. Ready to serve. Let soup cool completely before portioning soup into containers and storing in the freezer. Soup will thicken even more as it is cooling and stored in the refrigerator/freezer. You may need to add water to thin it out if it becomes too thick.

Yield about 7 quarts

Homemade Chicken Stock

Homemade Chicken Stock

 I LOVE soup. I can have soup even if the weather is 100 degrees outside. I crave for long-simmering soups. I don't categorize soup as soup unless it has been simmering over a stove for about 3 to 4 hours, or cooked in a slow cooker for 8 to 10 hours. The kind of soup I crave for from time to time is just rich homemade chicken stock. Homemade chicken stock is clean tasting and tastes just like...rich chicken stock. I only use two ingredients to make my rich chicken stock: just chicken and filtered water. I do not add any vegetables, herbs or spices...not even salt.  Since I like to consume the chicken meat with my stock, I use only chicken thighs. You can use chicken breast, but I find my chicken stock more flavorful using chicken thighs; plus after simmering the soup for 4 hours, the chicken thighs are still edible while the chicken breast will be very dry. So here is how I cook my two-ingredient rich chicken stock:

First remove all visible fats (or as much as you can as possible) from each chicken thighs before weighing. I purchased 3:3.5 pounds of skinless and boneless chicken thighs. After removing all the visible fats, my chicken thighs weighed 2:12.2 pounds. So 7.3 ounces of fat was removed. That is why I weigh my chicken AFTER removing all visible fats. For every pound of chicken thighs, I use 1 quart (4 cups) of filtered water. In this example, I had 2:12.2 pounds of chicken thighs and used 11 cups of filtered water.

I placed my filtered water in a large 6- or 8-quart stock pot. Bring this "soup" water to a boil.

In the meantime, I have a separate 3-quart pot filled with 3 inches of cold tap water. Bring the  tap water to a boil. When the tap water comes to a full boil, working with 2 to 3 chicken thighs at a time, add the chicken thighs to the water. Let it cook for about 10 seconds or just until the chicken thighs turns opaque in color (this is a cleaning process to remove all impurities and gunk from the chicken thighs so it will not end up in your soup). Immediately transfer the chicken to the soup water (big pot). Repeat this "cleaning" process with the remainder of the chicken thighs.

When all the chicken is added to the soup pot, wait for the soup to come to a full boil. When the soup comes to a full boil, lower heat to a simmer. Cover pot and let it cook for 4 hours, undisturbed. When 4 hours of simmering is done, remove pot from the stove and let it cool completely before transferring the pot to the refrigerator to refrigerate overnight. The next morning, remove all the cold fat that is floating on top (I had some fat floating, but hardly any). You now have rich chicken stock ready to consume. You can add salt to taste, but I prefer not to. Chicken stock that tastes this rich doesn't need it. Transfer soup to an airtight container and refrigerate for up to 1 week or place in the freezer for longer storage. This amount will last me the whole week.

NOTE: If you absolutely want to make this soup more filling, while you are reheating a portion of the soup, you can add cooked brown rice, cooked barley or quinoa, or cooked soba noodles or whole-grain pasta. At this point, you may want to add a little salt to taste. If anyone is familiar with Sweet Tomatoes Chunky Chicken Soup, this chicken broth tastes just as rich as Sweet Tomatoes (but less fat floating on top).