Kale soup!

She was excited about the vegetables and kept eating the carrots! 

I love to cook with kale. The health benefits of this vegetable are astounding. Kale is a great raw vegetable to add to juice blends. I like kale as a side dish sauteed with a little garlic and olive oil. But my favorite use for the vegetable is in soups. Prior to the plant based diet I would make a chicken soup with white beans and kale and it was delicious! This time however to honor this magnificent leafy green I decided to create a soup with kale as the star. The vegetable stock I made on day one makes about 10 cups so I reserved 5 cups for this soup and froze the other 5 for what I'm thinking is going to be a lentil soup.

Kale Soup with Fresh Spinach

4 cloves garlic
1 medium onion
1/2 cup chopped celery
1 cup shredded/chopped savory cabbage
1 tbs olive oil
2 cups chopped dino kale
2 tbs tomato paste
5 cups vegetable stock
2 potatoes cubed
2 cups chopped carrots
1 cup broccoli
1 cup fresh green beans cut in half
1 bay leaf
2 tsp paprika
dash cayenne
dash cumin
1 tsp herbs de province or italian seasoning

For serving:
1 bunch fresh spinach chopped
1 bunch fresh green onion chopped

1) Saute 4 cloves of garlic and medium onion in 1 tbs olive oil over medium heat for a few minutes add celery and shredded/chopped cabbage. Season with a dash of salt and fresh ground pepper and then add 2 tbs red wine vinegar. Continue to cook for another few minutes 2) add 2 cups chopped kale and fold in 2 tbs tomato paste, go ahead and add 5 cups vegetable stock and as that is heating up add the rest of the vegetables and seasonings add about 3 cups of water. 3) Cover, reduce heat to low and cook for a couple hours.  If you wanted to make this in the crock pot you could do step 1 in a saute pan and then transfer all the ingredients to the crock pot.
When you are ready to serve the soup add some fresh spinach and fresh chopped green onion on top.
Enjoy!