Someone's in the Kitchen with Conor: Sausage, Kale & Potato Soup

I’m not a cook who carefully follows a recipe, nor do I tediously measure ingredients. I’m an eyeballer; I trust my palms and intuition and I’m known to stick my tongue directly into a simmering pot to perfect the ratio of ingredients. Of course, that’s not to say I don’t read recipes. Au contraire. Come by my place on a Sunday afternoon and you’ll find me sprawled on the living room floor among my cookbooks while disassembling recipes and uniting the best from each (if only Dr. Moreau were a foodie.) And, without being egotistical, I fancy myself a slow-cooker savant—a trait I assume I inherited from my mother who raised three boys solely on home haircuts and a crockpot.

Before this gets too Under the Tuscan Sun (the book, not the film,) I’ll just give you the damned recipe, rather than a long soliloquy on brick floors and crusty bread.

What You'll Need:

• Olive oil
• 1 pound Italian Sausage (I like the kind from my grocery store that looks like ground beef and isn't in the casing)
• 4 bacon slices, chopped or crumbled
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 4 garlic cloves, minced 
• 3/4 pound of kale, chopped or torn
• 4 cups potatoes, chopped (I use red potatoes with the skins on; I like the way it looks in the soup)
• 48 ounces chicken broth
• 2 bay leaves
• 1/2 pint cream
• Salt and pepper

Let's Get Cookin':

Drizzle a few tablespoons of olive oil into a heated skillet. Add Italian sausage and brown while breaking up the sausage with a wooden spoon. Once the sausage is browned, drain and add to crockpot.

Next, add bacon slices to skillet and cook until crisp. Remove bacon and blot with paper towel, then crumble or chop bacon and add to crockpot. Reserve the bacon grease in the skillet.

Add chopped onion to bacon grease and sauté until golden. Then, add the minced garlic to the skillet with onions and sauté until the garlic becomes fragrant. Drain and add to crockpot.

Add kale, potatoes, chicken broth and bay leaves to crockpot and cook four hours on high, or until potatoes are tender. Next, add cream and continue cooking for 15 minutes.

Remove bay leaves, salt and pepper to taste, then serve.

CJM