Foodie Friday: Kale

I love kale.  I really do.  When we first started getting CSA shares, I really don’t think I’d ever knowingly eaten kale.  This KILLS me now.  I had no idea what to do with it, no idea how to cook it and, let’s be honest here, I didn’t love it.  My palate, thankfully, has grown a lot over the last 8 years of cooking with local veggies and I now adore kale. . . all kinds of kale.  If you’re not acquainted with kale, let me give you a quick run-down on this nutritionally packed green.  You’ll want to wash this stuff really well.  You can soak it in a sink of cool water to get any buggies off of it, swirl it around and dry it and store it in a plastic bag with a paper towel (like Martha told us to do with our salad greens last week).  If you’re using it right away, just tear the leaves right off the hard stems.  You can put those stems, along with any other edible veggie bits you might otherwise chuck or compost, into a tub in your freezer.  When you reach critical mass, make a stock. Back to the kale:  chop or tear up your kale into bite size pieces.  Add to soup or stir fries or into your burrito/enchilada filling.  If you have too much to eat this week, you can blanch it quickly, then lay out your dried off pieces of kale onto a cookie sheet and put it in the freezer.  After about 30 minutes, put your frozen kale pieces into a ziptop bag and freeze them for future use.  Mmmm. Remember, greens cook down a lot, so the daunting pile of kale quickly shrinks to a more manageable size once it’s cooked.  This week, I used my kale in a soup.

I very loosely used this recipe as a guide. But, really, my soup resembles Molly’s in the same way that Ginger snaps resemble chocolate chip cookies.  Both are cookies, but really, they are entirely different.

Sausage, Leek and Kale Italian Soup
Makes a big old pot of soup

1 pound Nash‘s pork sausage (or other uncased sausage you feel good about eating)
Olive oil
3 cloves or garlic, peeled and chopped
2 leeks (white parts chopped) and half an onion chopped (or some combination thereof that you have in your fridge)
5-6 medium carrots, sliced up
2.5 quarts stock/vegetable broth or water with bouillon cubes you found in the back of your pantry.
A whole whack of kale, stripped from the stems and chopped up (I used a good size bunch, all that came in last week’s CSA share)
2 (15 ounce) cans of chopped tomatoes with the juice
1/2 a small can of tomato paste (or not, I had it so I added it)
1/2 head of green cabbage, cored and chopped roughly (I only added this because I was emtying my frige and it was there.  You could add extra greens like spinach or something instead of this).
Salt and pepper and sage to taste
Parm for the top

Heat a little olive oil up in a big soup pot.  Add sausage, garlic, onions and leeks.  Cook until onions are translucent and the meat is no longer pink.  Add in carrots, salt lightly, add more oil if needed and saute for a few more minutes.  Add broth and bring to a simmer.  Then add the kale, tomatoes, tomato paste, and cabbage.  Cover the pot and simmer over low heat for about 30 minutes.  Add salt, pepper and sage to taste.  Tom added Tabasco to his at the table since he was working on clearing his allergy ridden sinuses.  Serve with yummy Bell Street Bakery bread and a side salad.  Mmmm.