Soup for Two

Soup.

Makes you happy doesn't it, that word? Soup. When I was younger I remember the cans of condensed mush that tasted like a tinny salt-lick as opposed to something you'd cherish the memory of. (That being said though, when my throat's a-scratchin' I seek the comfort of a bright crimson bowl of Campbell's Tomato. I know. Ew.)

My husband and I love soups and stews. I think it's the process. Chopping the vegetables, adding the spices, stirring the brew ever so slowly. It's theraputic. As is the result.

Recently, we decided to make two different soups. I wanted to make chicken soup from scratch, because I'd never attempted it and it sounded both thrifty and delicious. We got a whole chicken to boil, about 5.5 lbs, and it produced a LOT of chicken in the soup. I won't go through the recipe for the chicken soup, because it's kind of a 'to-each-his/her-own' thing. We added chicken, onion, garlic, carrots, celery, oregano, parsley, and a lot of black pepper. I chose not to add noodles or rice, finding that even when done properly, the grains suck up too much of the liquid.

Last night, we made Lentil, Kale, and Sausage soup. I based our soup off of this recipe. I told my husband that I didn't like lentils, to which he replied, "You just haven't had them cooked properly then." I could believe this. I'd only ever had them at home, prepared by my step-dad, and let's just say that though we owned a full cabinet of spices, salt and pepper were the favorite sons. The lentil soup he'd prepared for us on numerous occaisions (and that my sister and I had made excuses not to eat) was more of a gruelish mush the color of mud and fog. Not very warming is it?

You can understand my hesitance to trust the hubby about lentils now, yes?

Anyway, we bought some french lentils from Whole Foods and they sat in our cabinet for a week before I found a recipe that looked interesting enough to try. I mean, with sausage in the name of the recipe, what could be bad right?

To the right you will see all of the lovely ingredients that went into the Lentil, Kale, and Sausage soup, here on out called LKS. I decided not to add the balsamic vinegar, because honestly, I don't like it. I'm not a vingar type of gal. I mean, I get why it was in teh recipe, to cut the fattiness of the sausage. But really...why would you want to do that? Here's the part where, if you're on a low-fat diet, you click the X at the top right corner and wonder away to enjoy some rice crackers.

Sausage. Mmmmm. Hate to say it, but it's one of my favorite foods. Kielbasa in particular. And in this recipe, it lends itself SO well to the flavor of the soup. I used no seasoning in this other than the garlic that is called for, and honestly, I think you could even leave that out.

Ok, so you take the kielbasa and cut it into whatever size pieces you wish to have, then sautee it until lightly browned. Don't worry about cooking it all the way through though, because it's going back into the soup. You take the sausage out of the pan and put on a paper towel lines plate. Leave the fat in the bottom of the pan.

Using that fat, you're going to sautee the garlic and onion until tender and slightly transparent. We're not lookin' for caramalized onions here, though if you wanna do that, I'm sure it would be delicious. Also, I added some celery we had left over from the chicken soup as well. Just add it in with the onions if you're using it.

Once the onions have gotten soft, pour over the water and broth. Add the sausage back in and add the lentils. (I doubled the amount of lentils and probably doubled the broth too. I wasn't really measuring, because that's the great thing about cooking.)

Let the mixture simmer for a while, about 30 minutes, then add the kale (de-ribbed) and let it simmer uncovered for about another 10 minutes.

The recipe I used calls for the balsamic vinegar, and if you want to use it, now is the time to add it, and then serve.

When your soup is done, you will have a gorgeous, light broth that's fantastically fragrant and dotted with little brownish green lentils, bright green, leafy kale and tasty pink sausage.


Now is when you take a spoon, dig into that delicious puddle of molten tastiness and moan. Yes, moan. It's alright, no one's going to blame you. So go on and moan, make little whinning noises, even giggle if you'd like to. Pour yourself a glass of wine and relax.

But, if you're really a gluten for punishment, and this just isn't rich and delicious enough for you, then please do as we did and make these. Go ahead, your taste buds will worship you.

Until next time, enjoy your loved ones and your life, with a Spoonful of Sugar.