rain, fog, snow, ice: a day for kale & linguica soup with pasta

What a foggy morning! We are having rain on top of packed snow, so when the warm air hits the snow you get a thick blanket of fog. Hasty change of plans from a day in the nearest city to a cozy home day.

I had this idea that today I was going to re-construct Portuguese Kale Soup with linguica into a pasta dish with all those healthy and delicious ingredients. After an hour of steaming pots and draining kale and pasta, I had a taste. It was a puny little flavor, nothing like what I'd imagined it. So I reconstructed it instead, to my traditional kale soup with pasta. Instead of dark red kidney beans, which are traditional in this soup, I added Italian plum tomatoes for a little zing. Since there's so much food, it's time to invite the neighbors over! If you just want pasta and kale, you can find a recipe for that here.

To make:

1 lb or more of Gaspar's linguica, sliced into 1 inch ish pieces

1 large onion, roughly diced

a bunch of kale ( a big bowl full) leaves torn carefully from stems. (Discard stems)

1 1/2 cups Italian plum tomatoes, cut in quarters

2-3 cups cubed red skinned potatoes, unpeeled

2 cups chicken or vegetable stock

Water to cover

2 cloves fat garlic, minced or pressed

hot pepper flakes

3 T. olive oil

salt and freshly cracked pepper

Cooked pasta ( I used thin spagetti here)

Place the linguica, onion, kale, tomatoes, potatoes and chicken stock in the pot.

Turn up the heat to medium-high and add enough water to just reach the top of the vegetables and linguica. The kale cooks down by about 75%.

Add the red pepper flakes, garlic and the olive oil.

Cook until the potatoes are tender, keeping an eye on the liquid, adding more stock or water if necessary to keep soup from scorching.

While the soup is cooking, make a batch of pasta, drain, and toss with olive oil. Cover and set aside.

Taste the soup and add salt and pepper as needed.

Using two forks, fill the soup bowls halfway with pasta, then ladle the kale soup on top, making sure each person gets several pieces of the linguica. Ummmmmm - good, good, good!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What I'm reading: Robert Parker's classic " Potshot". I'll miss him dearly.

Please support Doctors without Borders and Partners in Health in Haiti! Thank you.