Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Spicy Sausage and Mustard Green Soup

The garden has gone mad. It got off to a very slow start this season but now we have more mustard greens (and chard and kale) than any normal family could use.
And . . . it's spicy, super spicy.
With polish sausage carried home from Ostrowski's in Baltimore and mustard greens in the kitchen I started on soup. First I sautéed celery, carrots, chopped garlic and leek tops I had stored away in the freezer. I hate to waste anything so when I am leaving town I chop and tuck away any vegetable that won't be used while I am gone. The leek tops I was tucking away for a future vegetable stock but since I hadn't been to the store and we had no onions for the soup I tied the leek tops into little bundles and let them simmer as the soup cooked for a little onion flavor.
When the vegetables had softened a bit I added in slices of black pepper polish sausage and let it crisp just a bit. Then I poured in chicken stock and a jar of tomatoes canned from last year's garden. When the liquid came up to a boil I added in handfuls of mustard greens and let the whole pot simmer until the greens were tender and had lost a bit of their assertive flavor. After about 25 minutes I added in cooked white rice (I had that in the freezer too) and some beautiful scarlet runner beans I cooked of all places in the rice cooker.
Soup from the freezer. A warm dinner and then leftovers tucked back in the freezer for James while I am gone again.

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