Sausage and Kale Soup

Here is a really great winter soup recipe that I had copied from a friend and have no idea of the source, but I can say for sure it was over 20 years ago so we are calling it fair game for “vintage gourmet” and anyway, it’s cold and YOU NEED SOUP!

Nothing easier – put stuff in a pot, heat, eat. I like to warm up fresh sour dough bread in the oven to serve with soup, but plain old crackers or cheese straws work nicely too.

One trick: buy nice quality sausage from the deli and squeeze it out of the casing, then brown like ground beef – it tastes much nicer than slicing a sausage and leaving the casing on. Also, if you think you don’t like kale, try this. 100% better than raw kale in a salad, let me tell you, but don’t forget to cut away the tough stems first!

Now get a big pot out and cook up some soup! This works nicely doubled.

• ·         Saute 4 ounces crumbled sweet sausage until crisp. Pour off fat.
• ·         Add 8 oz chicken broth, 1 cup water, 2 Tbsp tomato paste and stir.
• ·         Add ½ tsp fennel seed and a pinch of crushed red pepper. Salt as to taste.
• ·         Add 2 cups rinsed, torn kale and cook till kale is tender. Serve

Three Interesting Soups

In winter, I often feel like soup, and I love the graphics on the cover of Martin Lederman’s  1956 “Slim Gourmet’s Soup Book – Five hundred soups from five cans” but I had never used it, as his recipes are a bit vague (more on that in a moment) and call for canned soup, which I don’t love. Nevertheless, I decided to try a few because they were all quick recipes I could make after work, and we all need more quick go-to things to whip up while we’re still able to stand after a long day. The more I read, the more fascinated I became with “The Slim Gourmet” and his wheels, which remind me so much of art school! I tried three of the 500 soups, and despite my suspicion of cans, and of sensing a metallic taste in one of the soups (corrected with a couple turns of the pepper grinder), they are quite yummy and he is actually on to something here!

This is a gourmet cooking book that just happens to feature cans, because the time it was written was the dawning of the processed food industry, when we celebrated their glory: Economical! Never spoils! Clean, tidy and measured! One certainly cannot mistake this with “white trash” cookery, because he instructs you to add sherry, minced aromatic herbs and fine cuts of meats (even lobster!) to the cans to create versions of many existing soups, or variations on themes. Mr. Lederman calls this “upbreeding” (!!!) and suggests the idea came from mixing gin with juices to create cocktails, thus raising the gin to a higher level as a new creation. (Ahhh, gestalt theory in food!)

This was the best soup - from the Chicken Soup Wheel: Chicken Broth / Mushroom Soup / Asparagus Tips and (my eternal fave) Worcestershire Sauce. Add a bit of fresh ground pepper and good bread and it tastes better than canned soup, that's for sure!

Mr. Lederman, who is “deeply in love with soup”, presents more of a CONCEPT than a recipe (yeah, man, a concept album…) in which you start with one of 5 cans of soup, match it with ½ from another can and then follow the spokes of the wheel out , adding according to the path you selected from one of five “Soup Wheels” and reducing the quantity by ½ each time. Very clever and artistic as a concept, but totally foreign to someone used to cooking with only fresh ingredients. His very introduction praises the canned soup industry and delights in the fact that 20^th century cooks need no longer make their own stocks or soup bases anymore, thus saving time by using cans. His point was very au courant, but now we are in a time of severe processed food backlash, we “revolt” by insisting on performing every step in the cooking, and shun processed food. Hello, generation gap!

This soup was pretty good; Chicken Broth / Sherry / Bacon and Parmesan. I added fresh Parsley as a garnish, which is a restaurant trick to "liven" things up if not super fresh or if lacking in any way. 

 All said, there are very nice organic stocks and broths on the market now, and you can use his concepts to whip up tasty soups very quickly, which was his intended point all along. Add fresh pepper and herbs and quality meats and you have actually many options. I’ve made three of 500, so I have quite a way  to go myself in learning “The Art of Blending Soup”. I’ve only worked with two of his “wheels” : chicken broth and consommé. There other “bases” are tomato, mushroom and vegetable. Let’s get cooking!

The final soup I made began with Consomme and then RED WINE. It was so weird, I still can't quite get over it...

Beef Broth / Red Wine / Asparagus Tips / Mushrooms = JUST WEIRD

Lentil Soup

Soup! Winter weather just requires it, and the best thing is, you can make a big pot and have it all week. This recipe from Sunset Books 1977 version of "Favorite Recipes for Soups & Stews" is inexpensive and so easy, there is really no excuse, so grab a bag of lentils and get cooking:

There is hardly anything I need to say because this recipe is just SO easy. One thing is, you will be rewarded right away with delightful smells as the onion and bacon cook. You certainly don’t need to use bacon - you can leave it out if you don’t eat meat. In which case, I’d use a little Worcestershire sauce to make up for the flavor. You could also use pieces of cooked chicken or turkey in this soup, or sausages sliced into bite size bits. A final thing to note is that this makes a big pot, so if you won’t be able to eat it all, plan to freeze serving sizes in plastic zip bags which can be tossed right into your lunch bag to re-heat in the microwave at work. All you need is fresh bread and YUM. 

Lentil Soup

2 cups lentils

2 quarts water

2 slices uncooked bacon, cut in pieces

1 medium-sized onion, sliced

¼ cup chopped carrots

½ cup chopped celery

3 Tbsp chopped parsley

1 clove garlic, minced or mashed

2 tsp salt

¼ tsp pepper

½ tsp oregano

1 can (1 lb.) solid pack tomatoes

2 Tbsp wine vinegar

Wash the lentils and place them in a pan with the water, bacon, onion, carrots, celery, parsley, garlic, salt, pepper and oregano. Cover pan and simmer for 1 ½ hours. Add the tomatoes and break them up with a spoon; add the vinegar and simmer 30 minutes longer. Taste, and add more salt if needed. Makes about 10 servings.