Sausage and Kale Soup

I'm on a pantry purging cleaning kick now and truthfully, I'm finding it's kind of fun to let your ingredients dictate what you make.  I have tons of beans for some reason unknown even to me, a freezer with countless packages of these all natural chicken sausages I bought when they were BOGO and a refrigerator full of kale and spinach because I've been loving on a green breakfast smoothie every morning.  With those ingredients in abundance, making a sausage and kale soup was kind of a given. 

I really love using dried beans...it's the whole "I wish I was Laura Ingalls" thing.  All you really need to make these white beans is an hour of soaking in boiling water and then an hour to cook.  This is perfect  since in my mind, soup is something you kind of throw together and let sit on the stove for hours anyway.

I believe kielbasa is the more traditional sausage used for this soup, or you could leave out the sausage altogether.

The kale looks ginormous but just like spinach, it shrinks down to almost nothing when cooked. 

And what's soup without some freshly baked rolls?  

This is a fabulous super hearty soup to make when the weather is a bit chilly.  And it's also a fabulous super hearty soup to make even if you live in the desert where the weather is not quite so chilly anymore.  The added bonus is kale and white beans make it a pretty nutritious little bowl of goodness.

The sausage floats in the soup but if you want to cook this for an additional 30 minutes, this becomes more stew like and the sausage mixes into the thickened soup.

White Bean Soup with Sausage and Kale
adapted from Epicurious

Makes one big 'ole pot of soup

1lb. dried white navy beans
2 med onions, diced
Olive oil
5 garlic cloves, minced
12 cups chicken broth
1 t black pepper
2 bay leaf
1 t crushed red pepper flakes
1/2 teaspoon rosemary, finely chopped
1 pkg chicken sausage cut into 1/4 inch slices
6 carrots, diced
1 large bunch kale (about 12 oz) washed, stems and center ribs discarded and leaves chopped

1-2 tsp salt (to taste and depending upon saltiness of broth used)

Additional pepper to taste

1. Rinse beans, then cover with a few inches of water in a large soup pot
2. Bring to a boil for 2 minutes and then turn the heat off, cover and let sit/soak for one hour. 
3. Drain beans in colander and rinse well
4. Sauté onions in olive oil in same soup pot med-low heat until translucent, 5 minutes. 
5. Add garlic for another minute or two. 
6. Add beans, broth, bay leaves,  pepper, crushed red pepper and rosemary. Simmer, half-covered, for 50 minutes or until beans are tender.
7. When beans are almost tender, brown sausage over medium heat in a heavy skillet.
8. Add sausage, diced carrots and kale  and simmer another 15 minutes or until kale is done.
9. Season with salt and pepper