Final chapter of the Collard Greens saga: Caldo Gallego

When I posted my abundance of collard greens, a friend suggested I make Caldo Gallego, a hearty Cuban soup. We had already invited the after church lunch bunch for black beans and rice with collards so I made a quick run to the grocery Sunday morning for Chorizo sausage.

I checked a recipe online for the basic ingredients, but here’s what I actually cooked: 5 small potatoes cut up and parboiled , a quart of chicken broth, 1 small onion chopped, 2 small carrots diced, 6 chorizo sausages cut into bite size chunks and browned before adding, 2 bay leaves. After soup had simmered long enough for potatoes and carrots to be tender, I added the collards that had been previously sautéed in olive oil with garlic. All this was done in a rush, while I also cooked rice, baked a pan of cornbread, and seasoned the canned black beans with onion, bay leaf and fresh oregano. Usually I cheat with Goya black bean soup in the red can because you get a nicely seasoned gravy.

While at the grocery Sunday morning, I couldn’t resist some showy colored spider mums and some sweet pink roses to cheer up a fading Valentines arrangement. This proved fateful to Nancy; she dropped the knife as she was trimming the stems. Of course it landed directly on top of her foot and bled profusely.

We managed to pull it together, get to church on time and hosted an extravagant Collard Greens celebration. For Nancy, no meal is complete without salad with fruits and nuts.

As you can see, Nancy’s axiom is that it’s not enough until it’s too much.