Kale-Potato Soup

Potato soup is a classic, a favorite, a stand-by and how many winter nights does this seem to be the only possible choice. We always have potatoes, celery and onions on hand, right! Growing up, there were many winter nights my mom fixed potato soup; a favorite of my dad.   But, last night I did something different and added kale to the potato soup.  It was really good.  It's the first time for me to use kale in potato soup so I'll tell you what I did and what I will do differently next time.

6 medium potatoes, cut into chunks
2 carrots, sliced
3 stalks of celery, diced
1 onion, diced
1 garlic clove, minced
4-5 kale leaves, removed from stem
2 tablespoons butter
salt and pepper to taste

Put potatoes, carrots, celery, onion and garlic into soup pot and cover vegetables with water.  Cook vegetables at medium boil until tender.  While vegetables are cooking remove kale from stem and put into steamer and cook about 10 minutes. The kale has too strong of a flavor to cook it with the other vegetables.  When vegetables are tender put half of the vegetables into a blender and puree and add back to remaining vegetables in pot.  Stir well add butter and salt and pepper to taste as well as kale.  Heat until hot. If soup is to thick you can thin with a little milk or vegetable broth.

I didn't puree half of the veggie mixture and when I ate the soup I would have liked the broth a little thicker. The flavor is great either way.  If you like a watery broth then you wouldn't need to puree the vegetables.

With the kale, this is an old fashion world class soup!