White bean, sausage, chicken and kale soup

Kale was on sale this week. Expect to see more recipes forthcoming.

Whatchoo need:
2-3 Sausages (spicy italian work well here, sweet italian would do)
Bone in skin on chicken breast
Cannelini beans (2 cans) (could also use northern beans)
Onion
Garlic
Rosemary
Crapload of Kale
Optional: Frozen corn, white wine.


Whatchoo do:
1)Cook the chicken
Put the chicken breast in some water (2-3 Qts) and boil. Reduce heat and simmer for a while (hourish). This will be the soup base, and it will also cook the chicken. I would toss in a bay leaf, any old onion parts you have and some BTB or salt. However, last night I realized I had roughly a million quarts of chicken stock in my fridge, so instead of cooking the chicken in water, I cooked it in chicken stock. This stock was flavor fortified and I recommend this technique.

2) Walk away. Seriously. Clean the kitchen or something, no need to do anything while the chicken cooks.

3) when the chicken has been going for an hour ish and is falling off the bone, remove to a plate to cool. Strain the stock through a fine mesh something or other and rinse the pot. Return stock to pot, put on low heat and add Canellini beans and some rosemary if you want. I also added some frozen corn, which worked well but it would be fine without.

4)remove sausage from its casing and crumble into a skillet. Brown sausage on Med-High heat.
When done, add to stock. Give it 5-10 minutes for the sausage to meld, then taste for salt.

5)Chop onion into your favorite shape, and cook in the sausage grease until translucent (note; If there's a ton of grease, pour some off but dont get crazy. This is the sum total of the fat in your soup, live a little) Add some garlic for a minute, then add it all to the soup.

6)Now you have a choice. You can but certainly don't have to deglaze the pan with some white wine and reduce that by half and add to stock or you can skip this step.

7) Stem, wash and chop kale. I leave bigger pieces, but I'm rustic. Once the soup and everything you've added are hot, turn off the burner and add the kale. Stir to submerge everything, let the kale wilt for a couple of minutes then serve.

8) collect praise.