Soup!

Chef Steven back at it again! This evening I found a recipe for "creamy potato leek soup" that sounded good, and since we had most of the ingredients already I decided to try it. I had to get some leek and onion at the store, but that's pretty inexpensive.

So.... First, I melted butter in a large pot, then added two cinnamon sticks (yes, cinnamon sticks), a whole chopped leek and a medium chopped onion. Let those cook together a little bit. Meanwhile I cut up most of our remaining potatoes (which were growing sprouts and needed to be used), then added those to the pot, along with two cans of chicken broth. Let that boil, then remove the cinnamon sticks and let the soup simmer and cook down a while. When the potato pieces were getting pretty soft, I used a mashed potato masher to mash them a make the soup more creamy. I was surprised at how much effect this had on the soup's thickness - it was rather thin to begin with but then seemed thicker after the potatoes were mashed. I added some sour cream to help the creaminess, plus a pinch of marjoram, basil, and rosemary. Plus salt and pepper of course. In the end I decided I needed to add a little more dairy, but since I was out of sour cream I used milk - about a quarter cup, I think.

The result was a very tasty creamy soup. I was afraid I had gone overboard with the rosemary/basil/marjoram, but M liked the spiciness of the soup. :-) And it made quite a bit. We each had one and a half rather large bowls, and I think there are another 3 or 4 large bowls left. I'm not that good at estimating such things, however....so there might be even more! :-9

Our garden is starting to grow! We planted some serrano chili plants in a pot on the windowsill, and about 7 or 8 of those have sprouted. We also planted 5 kinds of herbs in two pots on the window sill - one of the herbs is sprouted and doing really well - we don't remember which one it is, though! :-} When it grows up I think it will become clear. I think this was the herb that was planted at half the depth of the others, so perhaps we'll start getting some other herbs in the next few days. :-) Looking forward to using them in our cooking! It will especially be fun when B & R come out in June and we can use the herbs in our Iron Chef competition.... :-)

Anyway - creamy potato leek soup. Good stuff.

p.s. I got the recipe (and then tweaked it) from a blog that I found when googling things to cook - it's called "Mennonite girls can cook".