I love comfort food. Who doesn’t? Any kind of soup or stew is a comfort food in my opinion.
Tonight’s dinner definitely fits the bill.
Sausage and Collard Soup
My favorite holiday meal to cook and eat is New Years dinner. I love the tradition of cooking roast pork, black eye peas, cornbread, and collard greens. This year I cooked lots of extra collard greens so I could portion and freeze some for future meals.
The weather outside is frightful and here in the deep south, we are expecting some, dare I say it – snow. There I said it, the “s” word. Believe me, around here that word is scary. But we are blessed and happy to be inside and warm. And what could be better on such a day than a big pot of soup in the slow cooker?
We had a ham for Christmas and I cooked the bone to make broth. I used this broth – about 8 to 10 cups – for the base of my sausage and collard soup. Actually I used ham broth when I cooked the fresh collards.
After frying up about 8 slices of bacon, I reserved some of the bacon grease to fry up a package of thinly sliced smoked sausage. I then sauteed some chopped onions, bell peppers, celery, and a few carrots in the remaining pan drippings and added all but half the bacon [which I crumbled] into the ham broth. I seasoned everything with some garlic salt, Italian seasoning, cracked black pepper, and crushed red pepper.
I cooked this on low for about 4 hours before adding peeled and chopped potatoes. After the potatoes were added, I let it cook on medium for a couple more hours before adding in about 3 cups of well drained and squeezed cooked collards.
It cooked for about an hour when I turned it up on high and added a cup of half and half with 2 tablespoons of cornstarch to thicken it a little.
For serving, I offered sliced green onions, the rest of the crumbled bacon, and shredded cheddar cheese for toppings. Served with leftover jalapeno cornbread, this was a great meal for a very cold and rainy night.
On tap for tomorrow is my husband’s famous Cincinnati chili. It is our family’s most favorite meal and such a great meal to have when the temps drop into the teens. Brrrrrr…..
What’s your favorite cold weather dish?
Stay warm, friends!
xo, Faith
Leave a Reply