Fumbling Toward Culinary Talent: Sausage, Navy Bean, Broccoli, and Kale Soup

This is a two-part recipe because I first made a vegetable-chicken stock as the base for the soup. It's similar to another soup I made last month. 

Here are the ingredients for the veggie-chicken stock:

• 4 carrots, chopped in large chunks
• 2 leftover chicken legs and a bit of assorted meat from a leftover roasted chicken
• 4 stalks of celery, roughly chopped
• 3/4 of a medium yellow onion, quartered
• 1/4 a green pepper, chopped in large chunks
• 2 whole bags of frozen broccoli cuts
• 1 clove of garlic
• 2 bay leaves
• 10 whole peppercorns

I put all of that in a stock pot and covered it with water. The water came up to about two-thirds of the way up the stock pot. I simmered that for approximately two and a half hours, and it reduced by at least a half. I cooled it for ten minutes and then strained the goods. 

Here is the next set of ingredients:

• 1 32oz. container of reduced sodium chicken stock
• 5 carrots, halved and then cut into thin half-moons
• 3 cups of navy beans, soaked over night and drained
• 1/4 of yellow onion, diced
• 4 shallots, chopped
• 1 bunch of kale, cut roughly
• 1 head of fresh broccoli, cut into florets
• 3/4 lb. of smoked sausage
• Healthy smidge of Boquet Garni
• Good smidge of Penzey's Italian seasoning
• Some garlic powder
• Salt and cracked black pepper to taste

I put the navy beans, carrots, onion, and shallots in first and simmered them for an hour. After the hour, then I put in the kale and seasoning and continued to simmer. I took three-quarters of a pound of smoked turkey sausage, sliced it thinly, and then browned it in a cast iron skillet. Once browned, I transferred the sausage to a plate covered in a paper towel. After all that's done, dump in the sausage and fresh broccoli and simmer it all for about 30 minutes.