White Bean, Kale, and Smoked Sausage Soup

     Before I really started cooking, a Dutch Oven involved pulling the covers up over my spouse's head and farting.* Needless to say, the wife did not find that sort of thing anywhere near as funny as I did.

This isn't a big selling card with Hallmark.

     Anyway, last year the wife finally clarified the term by buying me a cast iron enameled Dutch oven for Christmas. She also got me a cookbook to go along with it. I have learned to love this pot. It takes slow cooking to another place entirely. One thing I've learned it does well is soups. Within the cookbook, The Dutch Oven Cookbook by Sharon Kramis and Julie Kramer Hearne, are a number of great soup recipes. I am reprinting one here, along with any notes or changes I made in blue.

White Bean, Kale, and Smoked Sausage Soup
originally: White Bean, Swiss Chard, and Andouille Sausage Soup

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 cups peeled and diced Yukon Gold potatoes (I only diced them. My Mom always swore there were important nutrients in the peel. Seemed legit so I never fact checked it. To this day, I never peel a potato. I also didn't use Yukon Gold. I hardly ever have them in the house. I used Russet.)
• 1 cup chopped yellow onion
• 1 cup peeled and diced carrots
• 6 cups chicken broth (Didn't have any chicken stock ready, so I went with 6 cups of water and 4 chicken bouillon cubes. On the upshot, now I don't need to add salt.)
• Two 14.5 ounce cans cannellini beans, drained (I used Great Northern. I figure they're the same color and shape, so close enough is good enough.)
• 8 ounces precooked andouille sausage (about 2 pieces), halved lengthwise then cut crosswise into 1/2 inch strips (I don't really ever have andouille sausage in the house and if I did, I'd be cooking something Cajun. I used one pound of Eckrich Cheddar Smoked Sausage.)
• 2 cups Swiss Chard, washed and cut into 1/2 in strips (I guess I'm defective, but I can't stand Swiss Chard. It tastes like dirt. Any time a recipe calls for Swiss Chard, I just sub in kale. So that's what I did here. I used an equal amount of kale.)
• Salt and pepper to taste (If you made it my way, you probably don't want to add salt)

Directions

1. Over medium-low heat, melt the butter in a 5 1/2 quart Dutch oven. Add carrots, onions and potatoes. Saute briefly, 2-3 minutes.
2. Add chicken broth and turn heat to low. Simmer for 30 minutes, until carrots and potatoes are soft. 
3. Add beans and cook for 5 minutes. Add sausage and greens and simmer for 5 more minutes. 

Serves 6 (Theoretically)

*I mention this because the soup, as I made it, made us a wee bit gassy. And by "a wee bit" I mean we thought we were rotting inside. Cook it my way at your own risk. Mind you, we still keep eating it. It's just that good.
The soup, I mean. Not the gas.

Good times!

Chamber of Horrors: The Refrigerator

     So there are hundreds, if not thousands of blog posts and articles about the ingredients that must be kept in the cabinets and refrigerators to be a successful cook. I'm not going to bother you with those ingredients. I have them. You have them. We all have them. Today I'm going to take a look at some of the things in my fridge that most of you don't have. Things I probably should throw away. I will be judging the quality of these items with the help of my close, personal friend, Barack Obama.

A 13 Year Old Bottle of Hot Sauce
A couple of days ago I was making taco salads and was trying to figure out what hot sauce to use. I rummaged in the fridge and happened across a bottle of Pain is Good Garlic Habanero sauce. I bought this bottle when I was still living at home. 13 years ago. I assumed that hot sauces are mostly vinegar, so I should be fine. I put it on my taco salad. It still had plenty of heat.

Obama says: Still has plenty of heat and flavor.
Still good for a few more years.

Horseradish That Was Past The Expiration Date When I Bought It
Our local market regularly lists items as "Manager's Special." This roughly translates to "sell at a reduced price before the health inspector comes in and sees that we're selling food days after the 'sell by' date." Lurking in my refrigerator is a jar of horseradish that was a week or so past the "sell by" date when I bought it. Two years ago. I figure horseradish has vinegar in it, too, so no worries there. Still has some tang to it. I can't figure out how this could possibly spoil, but I'm starting to worry.

Obama says: Tastes okay, but maybe consider tossing it already.
 You only paid a buck-fifty for it

Wishbones
I'm not talking salad dressings, I'm talking honest to God wishbones out of turkeys. I must have three or four in the fridge. I place the blame for this behavior firmly on my mother. She would take the wishbone out of the bird, put it in a zip lock bag to dry out, then forget about it forever. In my house we do actually break the wishbone. We make a wish and everything. However, I have somehow managed to build up a backlog of wishbones. I can't eat them. They won't make good soup stock. I don't see myself making a pile of wishes.

Obama says: Throw the damned things out already.
Or send them to me. I could use all the help I can get.

A Quart Jar of Spicy Pickled Chard Stems
We grew a bunch of chard two years ago and never really figured out what to do with it. I never could get past the dirty taste. We ended up with a huge glut of chard at the end of the season. I found a recipe for to pickle them in a spicy pickling liquid. I pickled them. The liquid turned purple. When we opened them later that year, what I had was chard that still tasted dirty but was now spicy. Nobody will really eat it and I can't bring myself to throw it away because that seems wasteful. Now it just sits quietly in the back of the fridge.

Obama says: Shitcan it. Even the roaches won't eat it.

That's all for now. Maybe sometime I'll take a look in my cabinets and see what Eldritch Horrors reside there!

Good times!