Fall Lunch: Potato-Leek Soup

The handsome vegetables you see here are about to become part of an even handsomer potato-leek soup.

I originally tried this recipe, approximated some measurements, and here's what happened.

The two smaller leeks on the left in the picture are the ones we're going to use. Rinse them, trim off those stringy roots, and chop them into small slices, from the white ends up to the green tips.

You already have an entire chopped sweet onion simmering in oil on the stove. Let it simmer until you have finished chopping two medium-sized leeks.



Next, you're going to add the chopped leeks to the onions on the stove, stir the leeks and onions together and let them simmer. Crush at least three cloves of garlic and add to the mixture in the large pot. Sautee this mess for about 7 minutes or until you're done cutting up and rinsing the potatoes.

As you can see, I used huge Russet potatoes. Chop them and add them to the pot. To that, add the vegetable stock. The recipe says four cups of vegetable stock. I used four cups of our homemade vegetable stock plus three cups of water.

Our vegetable stock turned out very dark and gravy-colored and oily this time. Which is perfect for soup stock. It had huge amounts of broccoli stem. We had this questionable broccoli whose ends had gone yellow and sort of slimy. I cut off the ends and threw the heart of the broccoli tree into the stew pot. There were also four giant orange carrots that had been kicking around in the fridge for a while. We had a fair amount of kale, the greens and some stems from a cauliflower, lots of green bean ends, some onion skins, the tough outer layer of onions and the heart of an onion, and the last of the last round of leeks. I was concerned that the heady result would overwhelm my fresh leeks and potatoes, so I nearly matched the amount of stock I put in with water.


Bring your soup to a boil, reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer for about 25 minutes or until potatoes are tender.

Here comes the fun part. Blend the soup in a blender. I only have a smoothie-maker, so I did it in batches. I added a teensy bit of rosemary before blending.


Again, this soup made four servings. Four really big servings. I took a lot of it for lunch today. Bought two slices of rye bread for 70 cents from the store downstairs in the building where my office is and dipped them in the soup. The nutrient-dense vegetable stock makes the soup very hearty and fulfilling. Today was one of the first chilly days Philly has had this fall. This was the perfect lunch for the weather.

making vegetable stock

We made our own vegetable stock. First try, first time. We're saving scraps for the next batch. Here's what happened.

Earlier this week, we were going to make this potato-leek soup:

INGREDIENTS

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
2 leeks, white and light green parts washed and sliced into 1/4-inch slices
2 cups chopped yellow onion
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 large Yukon Gold potatoes (about 1 pound), peeled and cubed into 1/2-inch cubes
4 cups vegetable stock
2-3 teaspoons fresh rosemary leaves

1. Heat a 4-quart soup pot over medium heat and add the oil.

2. Add the leeks, onion, and sea salt and saute for about 5 minutes, stirring often, until the onion begins to turn translucent.

3. Add the garlic and stir well. Cook for 1 minute more.

4. Add the potatoes and vegetable stock, cover, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to simmer. Cook 20 minutes.

5. Remove the soup from the heat and use an immersion/stick blender to blend the soup in the pot or ladle the soup into a blender, 1 cup at a time. Blend the soup with the fresh rosemary leaves until smooth and free of chunks. Pour smooth soup into a heat-proof bowl and continue until all of the soup has been blended.

6. Transfer the blended soup back to the original soup pot and warm over low heat until heated through. Serve hot.

Serves 4 - 6.

Adapted from The Great American Detox Diet, by Alex Jamieson (Rodale Press, 2005).

It would not really serve six. Not six people. We got four servings out of it.

The interesting part is the vegetable stock. The day before we made the soup, we made our own vegetable stock for the first time.

All of the vegetables or vegetable parts you don't necessarily want to use for anything else, set them aside in a container in the fridge. Onion skins, the ends of zucchini, garlic peel, corn husks, rubber carrots, greens past their prime, squash that's gone soft.

Put it all in a big pot, season it however you want, pour water on it, bring it to a boil and simmer it down for an hour or so.



After it simmers for about an hour, strain out the vegetables and vegetable parts and save the liquid in the fridge.

The nutrient-rich, flavorful stock from the exact vegetables shown in the pictures made the four-serving potato-leek soup and, like, a two-dozen-serving stew with two kinds of beans, tomatoes, corn, carrots and general goodness. Both dishes were very hearty. I brought them for lunch, I was full for the whole afternoon.