****UPDATE***** I'm adding the recipe at the bottom so I can participate in the fun over at Kelly’s Korner. I'm not much of a measurer, but I'll give it my best guess. Happy Cooking!
My new sister-in-law is, (how shall we say)........... Green. She's sailed all over the world, lived in Central America, New Zealand and is now working on a coffee farm in Hawaii. Yes, we are going to visit. Soon. She's a vegetarian and is a very good cook. For a wedding gift, she gave us an annual subscription to a local CSA, which I just recently discovered stands for Community Sustainable Agriculture. We just call it Green Man Farm. Every Saturday, we go down to the Farmer's Market and pick up our weekly share of vegetables.
I didn't really know what to think of it at first, but thought it would be cool. Then the first week came. In our share, we got some greens that looked like, I kid you not, clover. Turns out they're pea greens. And they're quite tasty in soup. And it only got better from there. We had the tastiest broccoli I have ever eaten. We also got kale, which I had never tried before. Since I didn't know what to do with it, I googled kale recipes and mostly found soup. Some looked OK, but they weren't exactly what I wanted, so I modified. And came up with one of the best soups I have ever eaten. I felt like Giada De Laurentiis cooking in the kitchen.
Everything here except the broth, hot sauce, pasta and beans came from the CSA or my garden.
A little tour of what it looked like while cooking.
The Finished Product. Yum!
RECIPE
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 gloves garlic
1 bunch of kale
2 leeks or 1 medium sweet onion
2 to 3 medium potatoes (any kind)
3 to 4 carrots
1 slice very thick cut ham
1 large tomato
1 can Navy Beans
approx. 3 cups chicken broth
1 cup of tube pasta or gnocchi (I prefer the gnocchi)
hot sauce to taste (we like it hot, I use 3 to 4 tablespoons)
Chop all ingredients ( I usually do it as I go along) Heat olive oil in large stock pot. Saute garlic & kale until very wilted. Add leeks, saute until soft. Add potatoes and carrots and saute until crisp. Add ham, tomato and beans, saute until warm. Add chicken broth, bring to a boil. Once boiling add pasta and hot sauce. Turn heat to warm or low and cover. Let smirrer for about an hour. Serve.
P.S. This soup does not freeze well after the pasta is added. If you want to freeze, remove some before adding the pasta, cool and freeze. When reheating, add pasta when it comes to a boil.
Not a great picture of her, but the only one I got. (Not sure why I didn't take any people pictures while there.)
THE Sauce.
In the pressure cooker.
