Anne Can Cook

Leeks are new territory for me. I had never had one until one of my shopping trips to Trader Joe's in Minneapolis. TJ's sells pre-cut leeks in packages of two. I thought, why not? I brought a package home to Iowa, and then panicked. The logical thing to do when one panics is, of course, to turn to Twitter. I believe my tweet looked something like this:
"What do I use these leeks for? Should I saute them with my gnocchi? What do I do?!"
Luckily, one of my friends directed me in the direction of Nunkin and her potato leek soup. I asked her for her recipe and she kindly obliged.
I promptly made the soup and it was awesome, much like Nunkin herself. I really cannot say enough nice, glowing things about her, particularly since she is letting me post her recipe here.
Without further ado, here is Nunkin's Potato Leek Soup, as copied and pasted from the original message.
"2-ish T butter
3 leeks, white/light green parts chopped (fairly fine slice)
1 small white onion, chopped
2-3 cloves garlic, chopped finely
2-3 carrots, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 shallot, chopped (not really necessary, but I have fun shoving onions in this soup)
4 or so red potatoes, peeled (if you feel like it) and diced
4-ish cups veggie broth
roughly 1/3 to 1/2 c heavy cream
some herbs if you feel like it (I like dill or chives or both if I have any on hand)
BACON, cooked and chopped
CHEEBS

In dutch oven or large sewp-making pot or whatever, drop the butter in and let it melt. When the butter has gotten all nice and melty, drop in the leeks and let them cook for a minute or two until they soften. Add the garlic, onion, carrot, celery and shallot, stir it around and let
it hang out for about 5 or so minutes so that all those veggies start to soften and start smelling yummy. Then dump in the potatoes and the veggie broth (and any extra water you might need to make the broth level just cover the potatoes) and any dry herbs you might want to use. Bring it to a boil, drop the heat and let it hang out on the stove for about 45 minutes - an hour or so until everything is nice and soft and falling apart.
When it's hit that stage, remove it from the heat, dump in any fresh herbs you might want to dump in (chives are awesome) and let it cool for a few minutes,
and then blend it either in batches through a blender or with an immersion blender or what have you (you could probably mush it to bits with a potato masher,
honestly). When it's all blended, stir in the cream and adjust the seasonings. I usually serve with a handful of bacon and a handful of cheebs thrown on top, but you could probably mix that in too and it would be good."

I've been tossing in cheese with the cream, and then serving more on top. The more cheese, the merrier.

I have to say that this is some of the tastiest soup I've ever had. It's also relatively filling, which is good because I would be liable to eat the entire pot's worth if it wasn't.

I thought I was doing really well this winter. I started taking vitamins that were chock full of vitamin C. I was giving those vitamins the credit for my wellness this year. I had a sore throat for about five minutes in January, but now I'm getting a full blown cold. Curses.
Desperate times call for chicken noodle soup. It's the end all be all of cure-alls. Therefore, I decided to go for it for tonight's dinner.
I clicked through a few recipes, but nothing quite grabbed me. I decided to wing it.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, you can make soup out of anything. Armed with this adage, I took to my kitchen.

There were a couple factors in play. I decided I wanted to do curry-ginger as the flavor background, because curry has the heat to clear my sinuses and ginger is very good for you. I also had a rotisserie chicken that I had purchased as an experiment for the purposes of shredding the meat (remember my bone-in chicken phobia)? Lastly, I had vegetables in my fridge that were begging me to use them.

I started with a mirepoix. For those of you who don't spend your time watching way too much Food Network, a mirepoix is a mix of celery, carrot, and onion. My begging vegetables in question just happened to be baby carrots and half a white onion. I gave each ingredient a rough chop with some garlic.

After the mirepoix, I shredded some of the breast and leg meat from the chicken. I think I ended up with about a cup. I gave that a rough chop as well.

In my soup pot, I heated up a couple Tbsp. olive oil. Once that was sufficiently hot, I tossed in the mirepoix and garlic.

I let that hang out for about five minutes, then added the curry powder. The great thing about curry powder is that there is a million different varieties. Curry does not always mean hot. There are plenty of curries out there that are mild and somewhat sweet which are just as flavorful as hot curries. If heat is not your thing, I suggest a Garam Masala or a mild yellow curry powder. I like heat, so I go for a medium intensity red curry powder. My curry of choice is always Penzeys Rogan Josh.

After the curry powder was all incorporated, I tossed in the chicken. I gave everything a good stir, then added the chicken stock. At this point I seasoned the soup with ginger, ground pepper, salt, and some cayenne pepper. I brought it to a boil, them reduced the heat to low and let it simmer for about 40 minutes. At that point I tossed in some uncooked, broken spaghetti noodles. I broke them into about 2" pieces. I let the soup go for another ten minutes or so before I decided it was ready to serve.

Remembering that I just eyeballed everything, here are the estimations for the recipe:

1 cup mirepoix
5 garlic cloves, chopped
1 cup cooked chicken, roughly chopped
3 Tbsp curry powder
4-5 cups chicken stock
1 Tbsp ginger
Salt, pepper, and cayenne pepper, to taste
1 cup of uncooked noodles

Once everything is chopped, heat up a few Tbsp. olive oil in a soup pot. Cook the mirepoix and garlic for a few minutes to soften, then add the curry powder. Stir well. Add the chicken and chicken stock. Season with salt, pepper, and spices. Bring to a boil, then reduce and simmer for about 40 minutes until the vegetables are tender. Add the noodles and simmer for an additional ten minutes or until the noodles are cooked. Eat. Feel less sick.

As always you can augment this anyway you want. Are you a more broth or less broth person? Do you prefer more vegetables or more chicken? However you want to make it is how you should make it. I think that's how people really learn to cook-by taking recipes and making them their own.

My favorite food in the entire universe is mashed potatoes. I love them even more if they are garlic-y, and I love them most when I make them from scratch. The problem with mashed potatoes is that they are time consuming to make, so I cheat a lot and buy instant. Not a terrible substitute in my estimation, but they really do not compare to the ones I make from scratch.

I had poached chicken again this week (with lemon thyme, rosemary, and lots of smashed garlic), and I did some quick instant mashed potatoes to go with it. Those packets of instant mashed, though, provide enough potato to feed a small army (aka a family of four). I always end up with leftovers that I'm never entirely sure what to do with, as they get sort of stale tasting when I leave them in the fridge.

I am of the opinion that you can make soup out of anything. All you need is some liquid (stock of some kind is preferably, but in a pinch you can season some water or do a bouillon cube), and some other stuff. Voila! Soup! It's also been getting colder here, and so soup weather is upon us.

I had never thought about mashed potato soup until one Thanksgiving, when my grandma said something about turning the leftover mashed potatoes into mashed potato soup (although I find it incredulous now to even think there were leftover potatoes). It seemed like this really brilliant idea, and I kept it filed away in the back of my brain until this week.

This is a really informal recipe. As I said, you can make soup out of anything and you can make it in any proportion. I made enough soup for two bowls full, which was perfect for hungry me. Here are the rough estimations:

1 cup (or more) organic chicken stock
1/2 cup frozen broccoli
5 or 6 roughly chopped cloves of garlic
A dash of soy sauce
A dash or two of hot sauce
1 cup (or more) leftover instant mashed potatoes
Cheese
Pepper to taste
Paprika for garnish

Boiling the chicken stock. Toss in the broccoli and garlic, until they're cooked through. Season with soy sauce. Add the potatoes and stir until incorporated. I found this took a little while, since my potatoes were stored in the fridge. Let the soup bubble and thicken. Season with hot sauce and pepper. Grate on a little cheese (I used a marbled jack). Garnish with paprika--do other families do this? At holidays, my family always garnishes potato anything with paprika.

Turn burner down to low, ladle your soup in a bowl, and enjoy. I think I made some garlic toast to dip in the soup as well.

It turned out souper (haha) well. It was flavorful and potato-y and seemed to obliterate that stale flavor instant mashed taters get when left in the fridge.

I love mashed potatoes. I love soup season. I love the marriage of the two.