Tag Archives: soup

Smoked Sausage, Greens, and Bean Soup

Recipes

We’ve been making this soup with Good Mother Stallard beans, which may be taking away from how good the beans are on their own. But it’s a good soup.

Put one bag (one pound? 22 ounces? I forget how much is in a bag, but it’s at least a pound) of beans in water to soak overnight. In the morning, put them in the crock pot with a split onion, some garlic, a few bay leaves, and boiling water (to get the pot up to temperature more quickly). They should be ready in about three hours.

When the beans are creamy, remove the onion and bay leaves, and any of the garlic that hasn’t turned to paste. In a large pot or dutch oven, soften an onion, a couple of bell peppers, celery, and carrots. Probably at least a cup of each, although maybe less carrots than everything else. Don’t skimp on the bell peppers or celery. Add less than one chopped Kiolbassa smoked sausage, some garlic granules, and red pepper flakes. Add in the beans and their broth, and some Better Than Bouillon chicken stock base, probably around a tablespoon, maybe less. Toss in a whole bunch of chopped greens — collards, kale, turnip greens, beet greens, whatever. I just had half a pound each of frozen collards and turnip greens in the freezer, so I used those. If you’ve got fresh savory, scrape the leaves from a good hunk of that in as well. If you don’t have savory, thyme is probably good.

If you salted the beans while they were cooking and you put in too much chicken base, you might have to add some diced potato to bring the saltiness down. Simmer everything for 15-30 minutes. A dash of Cholula with a serving is delicious.

Potato / kale / sausage soup

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This recipe comes from the Skagit River Ranch stand at the farmers market. Cam made a bunch of this for freezing earlier, so I’m going to add notes for the changes I know about, and maybe she’ll edit this later if I missed anything.

Julie’s Tuscany Soup

Julie, a customer from University market gave us this and it’s delicious and easy! Jan 2010

1 lb Skagit River Ranch Hot Italian Sausage [I’d probably try 3/4 lb next time. — C.]
4 cups chicken broth [We’re probably using Better Than Bouillon no-chicken or vegetable broth.]
6 medium size potatoes, diced [Probably the Desiree variety from Olsen Farms. (I used a good four cups’ worth of diced Desirees. — C.)]
1/2 bunch of kale (4-5 leaves), chopped [Hah. We used two bunches of dinosaur kale, I think. We like kale soup.]
1 tbsp flour or corn starch for thickener if desired [Nah. — C.]
1 tbsp garlic (optional) [Not optional. When is “optional” garlic in a recipe ever actually optional?]
1 cup whole milk [1% milk was fine]
salt and pepper to taste

Take sausage out of casings, break them into small chunks & brown them with garlic. Set aside. In a medium sauce pan, pour 4 cups of chicken broth, bring to boil and add diced potatoes and cook for about 10 minutes until they are almost fork tender. Add kale and meat, cook 10 minutes on low heat. Add 1 cup milk at the end, cook for 3 more minutes and serve. Add flour or starch if you like a thicker soup.

Split pea soup

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I just put a couple gallons of split pea soup into the freezer (and had a bowl for dinner). This recipe is adapted from Cook’s Illustrated, mainly in that it uses some smoked ham hocks that we had in the freezer instead of ham steak and bacon.

If you’ve forgotten to thaw the ham hock, take one (around half a pound or so) and put it in a dutch oven or soup pot with 7 cups of water, bring that to a boil, then reduce the heat and cover, simmering for maybe 15 minutes to thaw the hock. Meanwhile, in a separate frying pan, sweat one diced medium to large onion (I used a red onion) with a couple tablespoons of butter and a large pinch of salt. Add two or three minced/pressed cloves of garlic and mix for 30 seconds or so — not long enough to burn the garlic. Then add the contents of the frying pan to your soup pot with the ham hock.

If you were smart and thawed the ham hock in advance, you can save yourself dirtying a frying pan by doing the onions and garlic in your soup pot, then adding the water and ham hock.

To the soup pot (which now contains a ham hock, onions, garlic, and water) add: 1 pound of split peas (recipes always say to rinse and pick through peas, but I’ve never once found a rock or anything else, so I dunno), two large sprigs of fresh thyme, and some bay leaves. Our bay leaves were old and stale, so I used a bunch. Two is what the recipe calls for. Also add a good amount of ground black pepper and crushed red pepper flakes. I guess you could do this at the end, but I don’t think it hurts any to add the spices now.

Bring the soup to a boil, stirring to keep the peas from sticking to the bottom of the pot, then reduce to a simmer and cover. Simmer until the peas are soft, around 45 minutes. Some recipes call for you to soak the peas overnight. Don’t bother.

After 45 minutes, remove the ham hock and add a cup or so each of diced carrots, celery and potato. Tent some foil over the ham hock and let it cool. Keep simmering the soup for another 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Optionally, see if there’s any actual edible flesh on the ham hock. There might be some, or it might all be knuckle and connective tissue. If there’s any meat that looks decent, you can strip it out, chop it up, and add it to the soup. Or don’t.

Remove the thyme sprigs and bay leaves, add salt to taste, and serve with a splash of balsamic vinegar.

The original recipe is from the January/February 2011 issue of Cook’s Illustrated, and calls for ham steak, bacon, and no potatoes. That recipe looked entirely too meaty (and a waste of a good ham steak), and I think the smoked ham hock serves the same purpose as the bacon. The potatoes might make it a bit too starchy for some tastes, but I’m calling this a success. I also think the red pepper flakes are a good addition.