Soup To Warm Your Soul
Written by Scotia48 on May 23, 2008 – 2:47 pm -Here is a frugal soup that I have made many, many times. I promised allep 10 I would post it. It goes really well with AAF’s bread. 
Each time I make it I think of Julia and my Mother. Mom loved watching Julia on PBS and made alot of the recipes there. I’ve adapted this a bit, but you can do what you want with it. If you find a really good bargain on potatoes, you can double this and add regular yellow onions and it works just as well. The more broth, either chicken or vegetable, the more flavor. I’ve also saved potato water from boiling mashed potatoes to use. That works, too. The soup freezes really well.
POTATO AND LEEK SOUP a la JULIA
3 C sliced tender white and green parts of leeks, rinsed well
3 C peeled and roughly chopped white potatoes, I like German Gold, Yukon Gold or White Rose or the good ole Russet
4-6 C water or chicken broth or a mixture of both or substitute vegetable broth (homemade please-the store-bought stuff tastes like celery and salt!) or add some whey. I save whey from straining Goat’s Milk Yogurt for Greek Yogurt and add it to soups, it really adds a nice layer of flavor-usually 1/4-1/2 C.
1 1/2 tsp sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1/2 C heavy cream or buttermilk or whole milk with 1 T of vinegar
1/2 C sour creme or creme cheese or creme fraiche (1C heavy creme & 1C sour creme, mix and let sit in warm spot [65 degrees] 24 hours, mix and refrigerate-it gets tarter the longer it sits)
1/3 C minced chives and/or parsley and/or dill
In a large heavy saucepan, bring leeks, potatoes, water & salt to boil then cover and reduce heat to a slow simmer for 30-45 minutes. Puree with a handheld blender, emersion blender (I love my Braun!), or hand held mixer or in batches in a food processor or blender. Whisk in the cream. Add herbs and pepper to taste.
Top with some creme fraiche and chopped chives or dill.
About 6 servings
Tags: Food, Freezing, frugal, soup
Posted in Food, Frugality, Gardening, Recipes |
18 Comments
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Sorry folks, I had a nice picture of the lovely pot of soup. Saw it on preview, it disappeared on post. I don’t understand.
This is a really wonderful soup to pull out of the freeze after a long hard day with a nice crusty, warm bread and cold butter and a cold beer.
You had it in there as a link with no text instead of as an image call. I fixed it — et voila, we have soup!
Thanks, my Kate. I’ll get this yet. Have some soup. Or the oatmeal-cranberry-toasted walnut cookies I’m making right now.
Thanks. That is one of my favorites. I need to get a blender. I usually use a strainer and muscles.
Ah yes! I make this as well, lovely soup, great in winter, piping hot, and great in the summer, chilled. No dill though, that’s the only herb I don’t like.
Oh Dear,
I’m trying to encourage my little baby dills to grow into big, ferny dills so I can use them in this soup and the Smoked Salmon Strata and Bread & Butter Pickles and good old Dill Pickles. I really like dill alot. I like that tangy tart flavor.
I can’t really say why I don’t like it…I find it too powerful for certain things. It took me years to like capers too!
You crazy guy! One of the first things in the PNW I loved was a breakfast of sourdough bread and scrambled eggs tossed with cream cheese, smoked salmon chunks, dill, capers, red onion, salt & black pepper. Many things you don’t like, but I really love. It’s just so here!
I love potato and leek soup! It is one of the easiest and tastiest of winter soups, and it is very soul-satisfying.
Unfortunately, it is difficult to even THINK about potato and leek soup today, as it is 95 degrees and 80% humid outside today.
Chilled vichyssoie is more to my taste today - a very similar soup, just a summer version.
I’m going to have to get myself a hand-held emulsifier. They have so many uses, especially when making soup-for-one!
Great recipe - thanks.
This recipe is great served chilled as well!
Unfortunately, where I am, its leeks and scallions and asparagus that come in first in the spring, so, I usually make some soup now. Our spring has been really late and today it was only 63 as a high.
Here’s one for you!
CHILLED SHRIMP & CUCUMBER SOUP
This recipe is from the Silver Palate Cookbook
2 lg cukes peeled and coarsely chopped & drained
1/2 C red wine vinegar
1T sugar
1 tsp salt
1 lb small shrimp peeled & deveined
2 T sweet butter
1/4 C dry vermouth
salt & black pepper to taste
1 1/2 C buttermilk, chilled
3/4 C fresh dill chopped
Mix cukes with 1 tsp salt, sugar and vinegar and let sit 30 minutes. Rinse shrimp and drain, saute in skillet in melted butter. Drain. Add vermouth to skillet and reduce to a few spoonfulls. Pour over shrimp and add salt & pepper to taste. Process cukes and buttermilk in food processor. Add dill and process 1 sec. Pour into a bowl, add shrimp and liquid. Chill and serve in bowls with dill sprigs for garnish.
I like the buttermilk idea in that recipe…but hold the dill!
Ok, YOU can use any herb you like. This is just really good when it is hot and using a fresh, tart buttermilk (I never, ever thought I would be a buttermilk connoisseur). The soup needs to be really, really cold to taste really, really awesome.
Scotia - re: D-3, you might ask your naturopath to recommend a brand. I go to a health food store that tests *all* its vitamins for potency and impurities — you simply wouldn’t believe all the brand they won’t carry because they got so sick of discovering their stuff was contaminated or had next to nothing of what it claimed to have!
But back to the subject … believe it or not, NOW brand’s D-3 is just fine, so that’s what I get. It’s the natural D-3 (cholicolecerofol?? or something?), 2000 IU. I’ve only been taking one a day because of all the grave warnings about ODing on it, but in a month, will up.
I really do credit it as one of the primary reasons I’m feeling so, so good - and my skin. OMG! Okay, so it could be it’s like a steam bath here, but this began happening some weeks ago before the temps got out of the 60s and 70s. It’s just glowing.
Read The Heart Scan Blog, and you can find some of the studies on it. Scroll down the page and, on the left hand side will be a listing of links to various topics. Or do a search on it there. I checked them out before I tried it, but I really do think they’re onto something. It makes sense, after all.
Thanks, sweetie!
I really do need this.
Thanks for your recipe, Scotia48, it sounds wonderful.
Back when I was cooking for the monastery, my own favorite was a carrot-ginger soup, served over rice, and my choice of the rice was a half and half mix of wild rice and white rice. The recipe is very simple, about two pounds of carrots, sliced, and one root of fresh ginger, grated. Cover with water, boil until done, and drain, but save the liquid. Put the carrot-ginger mix in a food processor and mix well. Add as much of the cooking liquid as you wish. It makes a thick, hearty soup, and with rice was one of the favorites.
That sounds like a good mixture of flavours. I need to try it. I guess you can add salt, pepper & herbs at your pleasure? This season’s carrots should be coming in within the next few weeks.
The spices you mention would probably do a lot for the basic mixture, depending on how spicy you want your foods. I enjoy spicy foods, but tend to like add-ons, as opposed to to cook-ins, as the source.
We always had salt and pepper available to season with, and they are both great, but I seldom used much pepper when eating. I didn’t try any herbs.
The recipe is really quite delicious just as it is, but I did enjoy the salt added to the result.