Russian Kale Soup with Smoked Sausage

Well, the nights are drawing in and I've noticed a lot of people saying it's Soup Season.  Well, guess what, here at Soup Tuesday, it never stops being soup season.  I never seem to be one for seasonal dishes anyway.  I eat stews in the middle of summer and salads in the snow.  It's all good to me.

However, what I do enjoy at this time of year is the later crops that arrive, like turnips, swede, big carrots and dark cabbages.  Today's soup involves just one of these, but it's my favourite!.  As I'm on a bit of a crusade to make soups from the more un-loved soups, I remembered when I was a kid and my favourite dish was Steak and Kidney pie (Still is my favourite actually) and my Mum would always serve it with a type of cabbage that I just can't seem to find anywhere any more - it had dark green leaves like a savoy, but was smooth, and had a taste that was almost bitter.  If anyone knows what variety it was, or even where to get my hands on said cabbage, I would love you for ever and dedicate a soup to you...

In lieu of that cabbage, I am including Kale in tonight's soup, which is a hearty winter warmer to get you in the mood for longer evenings, snow drifts and mince pies in the shops (I know they are already there, which is good news, bring on Xmas...)  Kale is pretty simialr in taste to the cabbage I remember from being a kid, and I know that its flavour is not to everyone's taste, but I like it as it has the strong, almost bitter thing going on, and is a prefect complement to the smoked sausage that goes into the soup as well

Ingredients
1 Onion
1 Large Bunch of Red Kale
200g Smoked Sausage
1 Tin Tomatoes
1 Tin Borlotti Beans
3 Cloves Chopped Garlic
1tsp Chopped Fresh Rosemary
1tsp Chopped Sage Leaves
1.2l Chicken Stock
Salt & Pepper

Method
1.  Heat some olive oil in your soup pan.  Gently fry the  finely onion, garlic, rosemary and sage for 3-5 minutes, until the onion starts to colour

2. Add the tomatoes and stock, then bring to to boil

3.   Finely shred the kale, removing the stalks, and add this to the soup, as well as the beans and 2/3s of the sausage, cut into cubes.

4.  Bring the soup to a simmer and cook for 45 minutes, until the kale has completely cooked and softened.

5.  Slice the remaining sausage and fry this in some oil until it starts to brown.

6.  Check the seasoning of the soup, serve in warm bowls with a couple of the fried sausage slices on top.  Enjoy!