Pumpkin and Black Bean Soup - Great Fall Warm-up!

Apparently, I made this soup on this day last year - as reminded by the book of face....
When I saw the picture and re-read the description, I decided I should preserve it for posterity.

Soak 2 C of dry black beans overnight and then pre-cook them with a bay leaf or two - until tender - about 1 hour.

I cooked the peeled and seeded pumpkin meat in some home made chicken stock - but could have used veggie stock just as easily. When it was tender I pureed it all together...


In a skillet I browned some sausage meat, added onions, garlic and a couple small turnips with their greens.
I let that cook for a while then added a green pepper and added the whole shebang to the pumpkin pot.

The sausage could easily be omitted and the veggies cooked in olive oil.

Stirred in the black beans (without the cooking water), added a couple of chopped tomatoes added spices and let it cook for a while. The spices I used that time were thyme, sage, coriander, cumin, cayenne, white pepper.

At the very end I added a little soy sauce for depth of flavorand some good red wine vinegar to cut the sweetness. 

As this was a chili-like soup, we added a little shredded cheese for an acccent!

It was pretty delicious!

Kale, Potato and Sausage Soup

I have made this a few times - and posted it to facebook but forgot to cross-post here. So, here goes.

Start with a little olive oil,

sweat a leek (or small onion) with 1/2t salt and some black pepper

add a couple cloves of garlic sliced,

add the sausage meat (sweet italian) casings removed and brown

add stock (I usually use chicken or turkey)

taste the broth for seasoning and adjust

add potatoes sliced super thin (use a mandolin if you have one)

add kale sliced super fine.

cook until done.

(I didn't put any amounts because I usually adjust for what I have available and what I think the kids will eat)

Sausage and Root Veggie Soup

There was sweet italian sausage on sale at the local supermarket.
I made this one two weeks in a row....All I can say is YUMMMMM!

I sauteed a
1 1/2lb sweet sausage, removed it from the pan
added about
1 TBSP olive oil and then
Chopped and sweated with a 1/2 teaspoon of salt:
1/2 a LARGE onion
1/2 head of garlic
1 inch fresh ginger minced
1 Large Celeriac (celery root)
1 Large Parsnip
1 Carrot
& 2 Bay Leaves

When the Onion was translucent I added homemade chicken stock, (about 6-8 Cups)
After about 20 minutes I added 3-4 white and 1 sweet potatoe, sliced thinly.

I let it cook until the potatoes were done and served it up.