Italian Stew with Cannellini Beans + Kale

As promised, this begins our 12 Healthy Recipes for the last 12 days of January 2012!  We obviously want to celebrate the New Year, but we also want to give you a little boost to get you back on the wagon in case you have fallen off a bit on your resolutions.  I'm sure none of you have though, right?

It's so bad for me that I don't even fool myself anymore by making New Years resolutions.  I've given up!

The first dish I wanted to share is 2nd Day Slow Cooker Italian Stew with Cannellini Beans + Kale.  I call it 2nd day because if you can wait, this tastes better the 2nd day after all of the wonderful ingredients and herbs sit together overnight and make love.

I live in Arizona, and this stew is so comforting and delicious that I can't even imagine how good it would taste after coming inside from the snow.  Wow ... I just realized how much I miss the seasons.  Midwest, you still have my heart.

You know what else has my heart ... slow cooker recipes.  That's what this is.  All you do is brown the turkey with some Italian family herbs, and throw that into the slow cooker with the rest of the ingredients.  And BTW I just got some slow cooker liners.  This is a must-have.  Cleaning slow cookers is such a pain.  You can thank me later ... jk!

One more thing ... I like this with the regular tomato juice not the low sodium kind, but if you really want to be healthy it still tastes great with the low sodium tomato juice.

I hope you enjoy this as much as I did!

So excited that this recipe was featured on Style Me Pretty.

2nd Day Slow Cooker Italian Stew with Cannellini Beans + Kale
Inspired by Foodista.com

Makes: 10            Oven Temp: Slow Cooker (Low)                           Total Time: 8 hours

Ingredients:
64 ounces tomato juice (I prefer the non-low-sodium kind, but low sodium still tastes great)
1 cup organic chicken broth
1 lb. Kosher ground turkey
2 cans cannellini beans
4 cups kale
1 1/2 cups fresh tomatoes
3 cloves garlic
3 Tablespoons fresh basil
2 Tablespoons fresh thyme
juice from 1/2 large lemon
1/2 large yellow onion
1-2 teaspoons red pepper flakes
salt + pepper to taste
parmesan cheese for serving

Directions:
Chop basil into long slices, and pull thyme from stems. Dice onion and tomatoes. Mince garlic. Chop kale into bite-sized pieces. Rinse cannellini beans until no more suds. Brown ground turkey in skillet over medium heat, and add 1 Tablespoon basil, 1 Tablespoon thyme, 1 clove garlic, and salt + pepper to taste just before done. Add to slow cooker along with remaining ingredients (including more salt + pepper to taste).Cook over low heat for 8 hours. Allow to cool. Put in airtight glass container andrefrigerate overnight. Warm and serve the next day sprinkled with parmesan cheese.

Happy Slow Cooking!