Navy Bean Soup with Kielbasa

I don't know about you but I hardly ever follow all the steps and use all the ingredients in a recipe. Except for most desserts, recipes are flexible and changeable. You can add and take away based on your tastes, what's in your pantry or what you think will work. I found a recipe on Real Simple for Cannellini Bean Stew. It looked great but there were several things I didn't like about it. It didn't have any meat, I don't like cannellini beans, the recipe called for carrots 3 inches thick, there was no tomato product and there was no onion. And it was only stew because it had less than 2 cups of liquid, not because it was slow-cooked and thickened. So I swapped out the Cannellini beans for Navy Beans, made it a soup by using 4 cups of chicken broth, chopped up the carrots, added onion and squirted some tomato paste into the mix. I also topped it off with kielbasa. I asked my fellow Twitter foodies what kind of meat I should pair with this soup. The blogger at Cave Cibum recommended kielbasa. Inspired choice!  The result was a pretty good soup. Next time I'll add a can of diced tomatoes for even more tomato! I served this with a side of hot rolls.

Ingredients:
4 carrots chopped
1 onion chopped
extra light olive oil
2 garlic cloves, sliced
1 bay leaf
1 tbsp of tomato paste
4 cups of chicken broth
2 15 oz. cans of navy beans, rinsed
2 cups of fresh spinach
drizzle of your favorite vinegar (optional)
sliced Turkey Kielbasa
hot rolls

In a soup pot, heat up a drizzle of olive oil. Add the carrots and onion and cook until the carrots start to become soft. Add the garlic, bay leaf, tomato paste, chicken broth and navy beans. Bring to a boil then lower heat and let simmer for 5 minutes. While that's cooking, brown the sliced Turkey Kielbasa in a separate pan that's been preheated and has a drizzle of olive oil. Set aside.

To the soup pot add the fresh spinach and turn off the heat. Let the spinach wilt. Serve hot in a bowl and top with a drizzle of your favorite vinegar (if you want) and slices of kielbasa. Enjoy!