Saturday, February 27, 2010

canned soup

I think I have perfected my potato & kale sausage soup. I was aiming for something similar to Olive Garden's "Zuppa Toscanna" and but I'm not sure what I ended up with. I knew I wanted sausage, greens and potatoes in it. I searched around the web for inspiration, bought a few ingredients and went from there.

I sauteed a lot of garlic, and crushed pepper, followed by an onion then some carrots and celery. After they seemed cooked enough I added the sausage and let that brown awhile. I then added a bunch of water (enough so that it would still be soupy after all the ingredients were in) a can of kidney beans and the potatoes. I cut up the sausage and took a shower so all the flavors would meld. When I got out the soup needed a little more flavour (I should have used stock instead of water) so I threw in two or three veggie bullion cubes. I tossed in most of a bag of collard greens (kale would work fine, I use greens interchangeably), let it cook until just soft and voila! Delicousness. I filled three of my Ball freezable canning jars (I love them!) and froze to add to my stockpile of "grab n go" frozen lunches.

Simple, delicous, hearty and adaptable. There is something wonderful about sausage potato and greens soup. Someday I shall have to try it vegetarian. Veggie sausage maybe?

which is more important? i.e. which would you choose at the exclusion of the other?