Sweet Potato and Sausage Soup with Kale

This is an adaptation of the soup of a similar name at Epicurious. But we changed the proportions a little and used an uncooked (I think) Chorizo sausage.

Ingredients:

• 1 7-8oz Chorizo sausage
  
• 1 medium onion, chopped
  
• 1 clove garlic (or more), minced or crushed
  
• 2 large sweet potatoes, quartered lengthwise and chopped ~1/3" or 1/4" thick.
  
• 3 c chicken broth
  
• a bunch of kale (I have no idea how much. Until it looks right), chopped or however you like.
  

Heat the sausage in oil over medium-high heat for about 8 minutes. If it's anything like ours, it will just fall apart, so there's no point in chopping it up beforehand. Otherwise, 1/4" slices are recommended.

After it cooks, remove the sausage with a slotted spoon and set in a bowl with a bunch of paper towels to drain. Add the onion into the pot along with the garlic. When the onion is translucent, add the sweet potatoes and cook over medium-low heat for about twelve minutes, stirring often. Add the stock and cook for another 20 minutes. Mash some of the sweet potatoes in the pot, and then re-add the sausage along with the kale. Simmer until the kale is the right texture.

Thoughts:
The kale could have been added sooner, about ten minutes after we added the stock. Also, next time maybe we can get sausage that won't fall apart completely while it's cooking. This particular sausage added a really smoky flavor that was pretty good, but pretty intense, and since it fell apart it really overpowered the other flavors. Getting something that coheres would be much better. The soup itself was pretty good, but really quite heavy. Next time I don't know if I'd mash the potatoes at all. It was something of a stew rather than a soup.

Disaster Index: 3/10 - not really a disaster at all, but there were a few things that could be changed. Still, quite delicious in small quantities.