I Can Cluster Feed Too, You Know...

This soup has kale and I still love it.

Isla has been sleeping for 3 hours this morning. This is typical text-book post-cluster feeding behaviour. You know what cluster-feeding is, right? Well, lemme paint the picture. Last night, no word of a lie, the lovely Isla was up to nurse EVERY HOUR. Without fail. The longest stretch of consecutive sleep I got was 45 minutes.

Cluster feeding relates to a growth spurt in baby and when this first happened with Archer, I literally thought I was going to die. Now I try to take it all in stride and today, although we had all these ambitions to get out and do stuff, we are staying close to home. Watching more episodes of The Good Wife and we just started Source Code with Jake Gyllenhaal. I hear the chemistry between him and Michelle Monaghan is through the roof. I'll keep you posted on that...

Anyway, it's days like this, that I'm glad I have friends like E who bring me food. As if I have any energy to make anything myself.

And her food was soooo good, I needed to share.

Soup. The best soup ever.

When E told me her soup was a Chatelaine recipe I wasn't surprised. Whether from the magazine or the cookbook they recently published, I have yet to try a recipe that hasn't been simple and delicious. Their website has all the recipes they publish too so check it out.

This is a hearty soup with all sorts of goodness packed in, including a healthy dose of kale, which I have to tell you, I'm usually fairly skeptical about... it just seems too green and healthy... you know what I mean? But in this soup, it's great and I will endeavor, because of this soup, to use it more (although you just can't convince me that kale chips are good so don't try).

Anyway, you don't need to be sleep deprived to love this recipe, so enjoy. Isla and I are getting back to Jake...

Ingredients

• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 2 Italian sausages
• 1 large onion, finely chopped
• 1 leek (white part only), sliced
• 3 carrots, diced
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 156 ml can tomato paste
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 1 tsp salt
• 8 cups chopped kale leaves, about 1 small bunch
• 540 ml can lentils, rinsed and drained
• grated parmesan (optional)

Heat a large, wide saucepan over medium. Add oil, then sausages. Turn sausages occasionally until they lose their pink colour, 4 to 6 min. Remove to a plate. Add onion, leek, carrots and garlic to pan. Cook until onion starts to soften, about 3 min. Meanwhile, thinly slice sausages. Stir in tomato paste, coriander, salt, sausages and any juices. Continue to cook, stirring frequently, until flavour develops, 5 more min. Pour in 4 cups water. Bring to a boil. Stir in kale and reduce heat to medium. Cover and gently boil, stirring occasionally, until kale is tender, 5 to 7 min. Stir in lentils. If soup is too thick, stir in more water. Ladle soup into bowls. Sprinkle with parmesan. Serve immediately.