Caldo Verde Like Grandpa Used to Eat?

This afternoon, I came home the Coventry Regional Farmers Market ready to cook. At the market, which was mad crazy with people, I had purchased knobbly Yukon Gold 18th Century Purity Farm's fingerlings, a huge sack of baby kale, a three-foot long stem of brussels sprouts, a quart of yummy goats' milk yoghurt from the Ladies of Levita Road, and some really lovely beef from the folks at New Boston Beef. I'd been craving brussels sprouts roasted with bacon and potatoes all week and so that is what I made as soon as I came home. But, you'll have to wait for that post because right now I want to write about the incredibly delicious kale and sausage soup I just ate.

Oh, meu deus, teh noms!

I found the recipe for "Portuguese Kale Soup" in Myra Goodman's Food to Live By: The Earthbound Farm Organic Cookbook (Workman Publishing, 2006) and this one recipe justifies the entire cost of the cookbook. Seriously, this soup is wonderful -- a hearty combination of fresh kale, sausage, and beans in a rich broth. Easy to put together and good for you! (Even The Husband liked it and he is not that keen on foods that "taste 'good for you.'")

Tweaks:

• I used a combination of low-sodium chicken and vegetable broths for the base.
• Substituted mild chicken sausage for the chorizo.
• I did not peel my fingerlings.
• Because I was using baby kale, I saw no reason to remove any stems, but just rolled handfuls of the leaves up into cigars and sliced them thin.

With rolls and salad, the soup made a perfect Sunday supper. (The salad was a bit amusing -- The Husband had complained that my salads were "salads for salad people" and he needed "salads for hamburger people" so I had him pick out all the salad fixings when we went grocery shopping this week and we ended up with a salad of butter lettuce, red cabbage, cucumber, radish, celery, tomato, and green onion. I see nothing hamburgerish in it, do you?)