Potato-Leek Soup

I confess, I am pretty poor at cooking via recipe. Baking is a completely different story (only very experienced bakers can bake via feel, like my friend Annette's grandmother and her strudel)- recipes for baking are a MUST. But cooking, I definitely do by taste.

Tonight I made potato-leek soup. It was delicious. My Best-Husband-in-the-World commented, "You're pretty good at making soup. I mean, your soups are generally pretty good... this one's just pretty spectacular." I heart him.

I will attempt to recreate the recipe here, but please forgive the sometimes rough estimate of ingredients. Feel free to ask questions. In terms of kashrut, it was a dairy soup, but would not be difficult to make parve with usual substitutions.


Ingredients to make about 6-8 cups of soup:

1 pound cut up peeled potatoes (this is an estimate- I had about a dozen mixed very small potatoes from my CSA a few weeks ago- if you have baking potatoes, use 2-3 medium ones), cut into small pieces

3 small to medium leeks (each one was no more than 1 1/2 inches in diameter), rinsed clean and sliced into half moons- I use the white, light green, and medium green parts, but not the dark green tops

1 teaspoon salt

10 grinds of pepper

Water

2 teaspoons parve chicken soup powder (also an estimate, I sprinkle in enough to taste it a little, but not so much that it would overwhelm the potatoes and the leeks

3 Tablespoons butter (or margarine)

1 cup milk (I didn't have any milk so I used non-dairy creamer)



Melt the butter over medium heat, add the leeks, salt, and pepper and saute until soft- try not to brown the leeks. Add in the potatoes and stir. Add in enough water to cover the veggies by about 1 inch, and sprinkle in the parve chicken soup powder. Stir everything together and bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and simmer until the potatoes are completely cooked- about 15-20 minutes. Puree the soup with a hand blender (or in a regular blender in batches if you don't have one). Add in the milk or whatever dairy substitute you have on hand. Taste for seasoning- add in some salt or pepper if the milk muted the seasoning level as it sometimes does.

Garnishes- cheese, green onions, baco-bits, sour cream

Enjoy!!!!

BD