Portuguese Kale Soup and Apple Pie on a Rainy Saturday

Yesterday we were celebrating Jeffrey's birthday. We went to Price Rite and bought three heads of kale because they looked great, 1 package of hot chourico, and two boxes of Betty Crocker pie crust mix. I had to twist my arm to use a mix but I told myself I needed to practice with the mix before I was ready to become a pie crust from scratch expert. These are my training wheels.

When we got home I took out my biggest soup pot and started rinsing the kale and chopping it. I added to the pot with water and started boiling it. Then I chopped the chourico into tiny cubes and added sliced 4 big slices of ginger root and 4 cloves of fresh garlic and a several bloops of olive oil. I added three chopped bell peppers that were ripe-red. I added lots of soy sauce and some sesame oil. I added kosher salt. Then I let it simmer while we cleared the enamel table to make the apple pies.

We sat at the table each with a paring knife and small cutting board and peeled and sliced the apples filling a huge plastic pickle bucket. I had another bucket for the cores and skin. Then I tossed the apples in sugar and cinnamon in the big wooden salad bowl. I added the water to the dry mix and shaped it into a ball and rolled it out on the enamel table top using my big wooden rolling pin and dustings of flour. The pie dough looked like a map of France. My French radio station was playing. I used a spatula to slowly lift the dough and fold it in half transferring it to the glass pie plate. I added the apples, piled high and I rolled out the top crust. I forgot to mention that I added dried cranberries to the apples. I preheated the oven and assembled another pie. The pies baked at 450 for ten minutes and then 350 for the remained of the hour. The pies had to cool off. We cleaned off the table and had bowls of hot soup. It was delicious. Then we had pie. It was the best apple pie I'd ever had. The crust was thin and flaky and delicious and the blend of cortland, empire and yellow delicious apples was amazing.