
Aren’t these gorgeous?! They’re truffles. Or truffle-like candy things. My buddy got them for me on her travels and they’re almost too pretty to eat. Almost. Because they taste even better than they look. I’ve told myself that I get to have one a day for the next three days. Let’s see how long that lasts.

A mixture of wanting to putter about in the kitchen, feeling rather poor, and having a potato to use up led to making some delicious homemade potato chips. A mandoline helps a lot, as it lets you slice the potato thin and uniformly. After slicing, it’s just a matter of frying. (Well, soak the slices for a bit first, then pat them dry, and THEN fry them.) Super easy and much, much better than anything store bought.

This is a soup that I sort of threw together one afternoon. My dad was coming over and I was craving a white bean soup. And voila! It was superb. Superb in a this-is-going-in-my-regular-rotation sort of superb. And, other than the Italian sausage, it’s super healthy. Here’s the basic recipe…though this really is just a soup I threw together and I’m sure that various changes would work just fine:
Take 2-3 spicy italian sausages, remove from casings, and then brown in a large pot. Break up the sausage as it browns so that it’s in bite sized bits. After it’s done, remove the sausage and, if there’s a lot of grease, drain it out. Chop 1 medium onion, a few stalks of celery, a few carrots, a couple of cloves of garlic, and a poblano pepper. Saute in a bit of olive oil in the same pan you browned the sausage. Once it’s a bit softened, add some chicken broth (maybe 5-6 cups?) and a couple of cans of white beans. And however much pepper you want. Let that boil for a while. Then add one bunch of greens. I used kale. Chop it before you add it to the soup. Let that simmer for about half an hour to 45 minutes, until everything is softened. Then add a handful of parmesan cheese and mix. You want it fully incorporated into the soup, you don’t want gloppy, stringing bits of cheese floating about. The cheese adds just a touch of creaminess to the soup. Finally add the sausage back to the soup. Let it simmer again for another 10-15 minutes, just to let everything mingle properly.
That’s it. Then serve it. It’s a wonderful soup, with a hint of heat that hits the back of your throat, enough beans and sausage to make it feel substantial, and enough vegetables to make it seem a little healthy. Just about perfect, if you ask me.
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