Get your greens...and your beans!

First of many food posts (prepare yourselves...)

Quite possibly the longest week ever. On top of it being a very slow production week at work, I ended up catching a cold from riding the BART to the city last weekend and took a sick day in the middle of the week. Spent it re-watching favorite j-dramas and drinking a copious amounts of miso soup (best recovery food!) Ended out the week with a headache...ugh.

Nothing helps me unwind better than cooking, and since the weather is looking like rain, soup was on the menu again. This is quite simply the easiest and heartiest soup on my go-to list.

Greens & Beans Soup

1 package hot (or sweet) italian turkey sausage

1 bunch of kale, washed, de-stemmed and chopped into bite-size pieces

1 can of cannellini beans, rinsed (white kidney beans, or something similar)

6 cups of low sodium chicken or veggie stock (homemade is preferable...but canned is easier)

1 yellow onion, chopped

2 cloves of garlic, minced

1 teaspoon hot chili flakes

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon black pepper

olive oil

Brown the sausages whole in a soup pot with a little olive oil (I love my le creuset stock pot more than life itself and highly recommend investing in one, or many.) Set the sausages aside on a plate lined with paper towels when they are done. Add a little more olive oil to the pot if you need to and saute the onions and garlic with the hot pepper flakes, salt and black pepper. Just before the onions get translucent add the stock and heat through. Slice the sausage into little rounds. Add the sausage, kale and beans to the stock; stir and cover. When the kale is wilted and cooked (about 3-5 minutes) it's done.

This soup freezes incredibly well. I usually freeze about two portions of this in glass jars for "oh crap, I forgot to make my lunch!" moments in the morning before work. ...which happens to me a lot.