BOXING DAY TREAT

 Our Boxing Day tradition is a big pot of minestrone. The absolute required ingredients are good sweet Italian sausage, zucchini, tomatoes, onions, dried beans, pasta and collards!

Here is the pot of goodness. I've added carrots, celery, mushrooms, peppers, & eggplant from the garden. A combination of chicken stock and onion soup give a nice complexity to the mix.
Be sure to drain the collards as they always come in a very spicy broth. Don't even think about using fresh collards...they take forever to cook and do they stink up the house, according to my friends in North Carolina. Even there they used the canned! Of course you could use kale or mustard or chard...any tough green.
As for the seasoning, less is more because there is already seasoning in the sausage, the chicken stock and the onion soup. I just add a bay leaf, some cubes of basil & garlic and some sage. I just let it osmose for a few hours on low on the stove or in the crock pot. Serve with crusty french bread for a real hearty meal.