Now that its warm...

I wrote this post the second week of February.  Thought I posted it.  I was wrong!  So now that its getting warm, here's a nice recipe for soup!  Well, at least I tried!

Last night, I made one of the yummiest soups I have had in a long time.  I'm sort of proud of it too, because it was essentially me throwing things in my pot and having them turn out good together.  I had a minimal guidance from Serious Eats (one of my absolute favorite foodie sites!) but at least half of the inspiration for it came straight out of my own brain.

I don't actually have a name for this soup.  Maybe inspiration will strike before I finish this post...

So first, I sliced up a medium sized onion. Maybe it was on the large size of medium. 

Then I sliced up a Kielbasa sausage to go with the onion.

 And then I coarsely chopped up three stalks of kale, after removing the spines. (Spines of greens = yuck.)

Then, I peeled and cut up three large-ish russet potatoes. I have no picture of that. But you know what chopped up potatoes look like, right?! I thought so.

I poured some olive oil in the pot and started heating it.

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After the oil got hot, I dumped in the onions, sausage, and kale, and stirred it all around until it was coated.  Really counted on that kale cooking down, because it took up SO MUCH ROOM in the pot.

The heat did wilt the kale, of course, and it sweated down the onions, too, so the big mass of chopped stuff I put in initially got pretty small in about 5 minutes.  Once there was room in the bottom of the pot, I smashed a couple of garlic cloves and threw them in there too.

After the garlic had a little time to get warm- but not brown-, I threw the potatoes in the pot and covered everything in 2 quarts of chicken broth. 

Sprinkled with salt (unmeasured, but maybe a teaspoon?) and a twist of freshly ground black pepper. And then a five finger pinch of Baby Bam (which I talked about a few editions back, when I made chicken soup.)  A five finger pinch being what you can grasp with the tips of your fingers and thumbs. Probably not as much as a tablespoon.

Bring it to a boil, and then turn it down to medium and let it simmer for a while.

I think I let it simmer for about an hour. Once the potatoes are soft, mash them into the broth with a potato masher or with a fork.

Let the soup simmer for 15 

more minutes, then serve.

 I think this would be excellent with some good crusty bread to soak up the broth. Alas, there was no crusty bread to be found.

I think I should call this... sausage and kale soup. Creative? Not really.  But I'm saving my creativity for cooking!

Speaking of which, what's cooking in your kitchen?