Hearty Kale, Cabbage & Potato Soup Recipe

A favorite winter meal at our house is this savory vegetarian soup made with curly kale, winter potatoes and cabbage. We serve it piping hot in the pot with hunks of artisan San Francisco sourdough on the side. It's a meal in itself.

Serve as is for a wholesome vegan meal. Spice it up with slices of caramelized Tofurky Italian Sausages cut on the diagonal. Dress it up with a garnish of grated Parmesan or Romano cheese, and finish it off with a plate of sliced apples and pears.

If you have a meat lover or two in your family, it's easy to add slices of meat sausages to individual bowls. I'll show you just how easy later on this page.

Colorful squashes, flavorful root vegetables tasting of the earth, dark leafy greens--they all brighten our tables, nourish our bodies and comfort our spirits.

Can you pick a favorite? I doubt I could. Too many to choose!

This soup always goes fast at our house. It's delicious the first day and just seems to get better every day after till it's all gone.

I use a homemade veggie stock that makes it taste like it simmered all day instead of taking minutes to make. Unbelievably easy to make and keep on hand.

In the skillet you reserve for cooking meat brown 1/4" slices sweet Italian sausage, cut on the diagonal, on medium heat till caramelized and slightly crispy on the edges. Add to individual bowls.

While human bodies absorb iron from meat readily, we don't take up much iron from the plants we eat, even when those plants contain more iron than red meat.

That's because there are two kinds of iron: Heme, found in meats, and non-heme, found in iron-rich vegetables.such as kale and spinach and legumes, like peanuts, dried beans and lentils.

To get the most iron from our plant-based diets, scientists discovered we need to eat acid foods, such as lemons and limes with our vegetables.

According to SFGate's Louise Tremblay, in What Foods Help the Absorption of Non-Heme Iron, apple cider vinegar is another good source of acid to help us get more iron from our veggies.

Somehow my grandmothers and mother before me knew this instinctively, without the aid of science, because they always used vinegars and citrus juices in recipes containing iron-rich vegetables. Did yours too?

Asta no longer makes the enamel-ware soup kettle I've been using for nearly forty years to take my soups from stove top to table, but Le Creuset makes a handsome assortment of beautiful stove-to-table pots. With these gorgeous kettles, you get all the efficiency and even heat of cast iron. Plus you get to choose from a rainbow of sparkling enameled colors. The smooth finish makes them easy to clean.

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For the two of us, I usually need only a small 5-quart pot, but when company comes, it's always nice to have a larger one for big pots of chili, soups and stew.

I love all the colors Le Creuset pots come in. The steel ensures even heating. The enamel colors are brilliant.

If you have a large family or cook big batches of soups and chilis to freeze, the 20-quart enameled kettle will feed your hungry crowd and keep your freezer stocked.

These pots come in handy during canning and pickling season too.

I'd love to know how you cope with the winter doldrums and which of the winter vegetables you cherish.

My Scotch-Irish ancestors loved cabbage and potatoes. I just discovered the Irish half of that equation loved kale with potatoes too. They served a dish, called colcannon, like this recipe from Martha Stewart, whose primary ingredients were mashed potatoes and kale.

All winter long, we use most of the dark leafy greans, cabbages, squashes of just about every shape and color, rutabagas, parsnips, and of course potatoes of all shapes, colors and sizes.

We roast them, steam them, mash them and use them in soups and salads. How do you use winter veggies?