Portuguese Kale Soup

Rachael Ray, I love your recipes. They are so easy to follow, and most of the time I have all the ingredients on hand. I always alter the recipe to my liking though, such as every time a recipe calls for onions, I automatically omit those and use garlic instead. And every time a pork product is called for, I omit that and substitute instead a similar non-pork item. So for bacon or pancetta I always sub turkey bacon. Or for sausage or andouille, I sub chicken sausage (Whole Foods has a huge variety of delicious chicken sausages; I get the ones that are either in a lamb casing or skinless). For ground pork I sub ground beef, lamb, or turkey, depending on what would work best for that recipe. And usually I will add a pinch (or two or three) of red chili flakes to most recipes- everything is better with a little heat!

For Rachael Ray's Portuguese Kale Soup recipe, I followed the recipe pretty closely and added my alterations when necessary. Here is the recipe:

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 tablespoon finely chopped garlic
• 1/2 cup diced onions (OMIT- SUB MORE GARLIC!)
• 1/2 diced turnips
• 1/2 cup diced carrots
• 1 bunch kale, stemmed and roughly chopped
• 6 ounces chopped chourico (spicy Portuguese sausage), or chorizo (OMIT- SUB BLUE CHEESE CHICKEN SAUSAGE)
• 3 bay leaves
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley leaves
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh thyme leaves
• 6 cups beef stock
• 1 cup kidney beans
• 6 ounces diced tomatoes
• 10 ounces diced potatoes (OMIT- I WANTED A LESS STARCHY DISH)
• (ADD 1 TSP OF HOT CHILI FLAKES)

Directions

In a large stock pot, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the garlic, onions, turnips and carrots and cook for 5 minutes. Add the kale, chourico, bay leaves, parsley and thyme and mix well. Add the beef stock, beans and tomatoes. Bring the soup to a boil, and then reduce the heat to low and simmer for 30 to 40 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a medium saucepan, bring salted water to a boil and add the diced potatoes. Cook until tender, about 10 minutes. Drain the potatoes and add them to the soup.

Remove the bay leaves and serve hot.

This soup turned out DELICIOUS! Here are pictures of it along the way, Pioneer Woman style :-)

If you don't know who the Pioneer Woman is, you are missing out, my friend. She has the most fabulous blog. She is my role model- right up there with Martha Stewart. Martha is fancy schmancy fabulous where as Pioneer Woman is more normal, every day fabulous.

Here are the carrots, turnips, and garlic cut up and in the stock pot with olive oil.

Here is the fresh kale, cut up and de stemmed. Isn't this a beautiful vegetable? And even better because it's in season right now. It is SO fresh, tender, and good!

Here is the blue cheese chicken sausage. Just cut it all up and throw it in the pot.

Here is what it looks like with the bay leaves, thyme, and parsley.

Here is the next step, with the tomatoes, beans, kale, and beef broth. Mmm, mmm!

Lastly, here is the final product, after 30 minutes of simmering.

Talk about comfort food in a bowl! Yum! Go out and make this tonight!