White Bean Spinach Kielbasa Soup

I am ALWAYS on the hunt for frugal, delicious, easy, yet healthy meals for my family. Tonight was a HIT out of the park! 

I originally found the recipe on Pinterest, but the blog was SO hard to follow, that once I got the general idea of what ingredients I needed, I went off on my own, and I am very happy with the finished product! It was also the first time I've used beans I had to soak overnight. I was pleasantly surprised at how simple the whole process was. SO, I'm going to try to make this MUCH easier to follow this time around...

Ingredients List

*1 medium white onion (evenly chopped) 

*1 medium tomato (finely chopped)

*10 ounce bag of fresh Spinach

*4 cups cooked White Kidney Beans

*4 cups chicken broth

*14 ounce Kielbasa

*2 cloves garlic

* 1 scant tablespoon oregano (See Note at bottom) 

* Sea Salt and Pepper to taste

*2 tablespoon Butter

*EVOO or Coconut oil to coat a pan

Start by soaking the beans over night in a pot of water. In the morning, rinse the beans, and then binge watch Netflix until you realize it's like 4:30p.m. and you should be thinking about making dinner....I mean WHAAAAA..Who does that?! 

So, now that it's 4:30p.m.....In a cast iron pot (or a soup pot) put the beans on the stove (on med-high) with enough water to almost cover. Season with Sea Salt and Pepper, and let boil until the beans become a little more tender ('Twas about 3 episodes of Sophia the First), and all of the liquid simmer/boils down to about nothing...BE CAREFUL not to burn the beans!! 

Transfer to another bowl. 

Lightly Coat the pan with either EVOO, or my favorite Coconut oil. Sear the Kielbasa on both sides. Remove the sausage and slice into even sized coin shaped pieces. Sear on both sides, add 2 tablespoons butter as you Saute the Chopped onion and garlic.  Once the onions are nice and translucent, remove it all from the pan, to another bowl, and set to the side. 

Wanna eat just this? You're not alone! ;) 

Bring 4 cups of Chicken broth, and the scant tablespoon of Oregano to a rolling boil. Add the beans, and the finely chopped tomato.  Let the beans cook until done, and or the liquid has reduced by at least Half. Everything should look thickened up, and more "Soup like" not "All water" when you first started. Return the Kielbasa/Onion mix to the pot. Bring back up to temperature. Add the bag of spinach, and more Sea Salt and Pepper to taste. Once the Spinach is just starting to wilt, turn off the burner. Stand back and marvel at your Boss lookin' Soup! 

Serves: Enough for dinner and some lunch the next day. 

This will for sure go into my " recipes of rotation", and make a monthly appearance around the McClung house. Even The Princess gave her stamp of approval. 

***Ahhh SO, you have NO idea what Scant means..HUH?! HAHA! Don't worry, it's nothing fancy, but once you DO learn what it means, you can dazzle your friends with your Fancy smancy cookin' words! "Scant means lacking a small part of the whole; not quite up to full measure. In other words, 1 scant tablespoon means not quite a whole tablespoon but a little less." The more you know~!***