Garbure, a delicious peasant soup

We love soup: hot soup, cold soup, spicy soup, comforting soup, just about any kind of soup except I don't much like seafood soup.

A week or so ago I saw a recipe for a French (maybe Basque) peasant soup called Garbure, made with cabbage, potatoes, beans, etc. This recipe called for Kielbasa, but I thought I already had a similiar recipe, so I didn't clip it. Bad mistake.

Went out on the web a couple days ago to find my garbure recipe and couldn't. Instead, there were all kinds of complicated things with heaps of turnips, yuck, and beans that had to be soaked and cooked. I had been thinking 40 minutes tops from start to finish.

Hmmm. Time to improvise. We already had some Kielbasa, the lower fat kind made with turkey which we really like, so I took that out of the freezer. Shot off to Shaw's and bought a cabbage, a leek, a second can of white beans, a small turnip, and some Yukon gold potatoes.

Browned some bits of slab bacon in the soup kettle, cooked the sliced leek in the bacon fat and added half a chopped onion, some chopped carrot, and sauteed that for a while. Added the chopped turnip and a chopped potato, a bunch of coarsely shredded cabbage (3/4 of the head), some hot pepper flakes, garlic, 2 cans white beans, and homemade chicken broth saved from the party, also salt and pepper, natch, and some dried thyme.

Cooked everything until the veggies were tender. Added some thinly sliced kielbasa, about half a pound. Cooked a while longer.

Toasted some rounds of nice sourdough bread under the broiler, flipped them over and spread with butter, shredded parmesan, and a sprinkle of paprika. Toasted the buttered side under the broiler.

I put a bread slice in each soup plate (we like the shallow soup dishes) and poured on the soup. Served the rest of the bread at table.

Kids, this was really good. We've been eating it for 3 meals with S.O. having seconds, and there's still enough for lunch tomorrow. It's hearty, nourishing and tastes wonderful. And fast and easy describe the cooking process. We sliced a couple tomatoes that just ripened and felt like royalty, not peasants.

Garbure. Try it. Cabbage is in season. Eat like a peasant king.