Potato and Leek Soup

This is one of my favorite soups. I actually went on and bought a blender specificially so that I could make this soup!

I've said before that I don't like brothy soups, and with this recipe I often make something that is closer to mashed potatoes than soup. Luckily it is extremely easy to turn this soup into whichever consistency you like best.

Homemade chicken broth is always fantastic, but I just use premade chicken broth. Get one without salt, though, otherwise the resulting soup will be very salty (especially if you add bacon).

There's not much else to say about this, as it is fairly straight foward. If you have the ingredients (which I didn't when I made this), garnish with creme fresh or sour cream, parsely and bacon bits (I didn't have any for this photo).

Potato and Leek Soup

Serves 4-6

Olive oil

1 large onion

3 large leeks

3 large potatoes

Chicken broth

Milk

Garnish:

Sour cream

Parsely

Bacon

Peel and dice onion. Sautee over a low heat in a large deep pan, or a heavy bottomed pot.

To prepare leeks, chop off the base and green leafy part. Cut leek in half lengthways, then peel the outside layer off and discard. Rinse the leek under water to remove any bits of grit or dirt. Dice the clean leeks and add to the onion.

While the leeks and onions are cooking, peel and dice potatoes to 1/2 inch sized chunks.

When the leeks have begun to soften, toss in the potato chunks. Pour in chicken broth until the potatoes are just covered.

If you are using bacon, dice it into small chunks and fry until crispy.

Turn up the heat and bring to boil. Boil until the potatoes are cooked through.

With a slotted spoon, scoop potatoes, leeks and onions into a blender. Blend until the mixture is smooth and creamy. Dispose of the leftover broth.

Spoon the mixture back into the pot or pan. Over a low heat, add milk slowly until the soup is the desired consistency and heated through.

Serve, and top with a scoop of sour cream, bacon, and parsely, if desired.

To the kitchen!

Chicken Noodle Soup

Posts are a bit slow because I'm in India right now, and most of food is being cooked for me!

I'm not a fan of brothy soups, so my soups are usually pretty full - almost stew like.

This recipe is a favorite because it is extremely flexible. The following is a rough estimate of what I usually put in - the actual specific ingredients and amounts vary depending on what and how much I have.

While carrots are a common soup ingredient, I hate them in everything but cake. I like to have both potatoes and noodles in this soup, but this is because of my aforementioned aversion to really soupy soups. Any vegetables can be added (or subtracted!) from this soup. The only really important thing is to try and time their cooking properly - if it needs to be fried then add it to the onions in the beginning, if it's something that needs boiling then toss it in with the potatoes.

Because this soup is very full, it feeds a lot. I've never served it to a bunch of people at once, but I have lived off of it for several days. I estimate that it could easily serve 6-8 people, and so if you're not a fan of leftovers then be sure to halve it!

It's also very low maintenance, requiring only one pot and a bowl.

Chicken Noodle Soup

Olive oil
2 onions, diced
2 medium sized leeks, diced
250 g mushrooms
1.5 tbsp Oregano (roughly)*
500 g chicken breast, diced
3 cartons of chicken stock - roughly 12 cups.
3 large potatoes, peeled and diced
500 g pasta**

Dice the onions and leeks. For the leeks, chop off the root base and where the stalk begins to turn green. Peel off the outer layer, and rinse the leeks to get rid of the dirt.
In a large pot sautee the onions and leeks in oil over low heat. When the onions have begun to soften, add the sliced mushrooms and oregano, mixing well so that nothing sticks to the bottom of the pot.
When the onions are glassy and the mushrooms are cooked through, scoop the vegetables out of the pot into a medium sized bowl.
In the same pot, cook the diced chicken breast. When the outside of the chicken is sealed, scoop the chicken out into the same bowl.
Pour in the chicken broth. While it heats, peel and dice the potatoes. Toss them into the broth. Allow to boil until the potatoes are soft. Pour in your chosen noodles.
As the noodles cook, re-add the vegetables and chicken so that they heat through.
Eat!


*This is a guess - I don't usually measure out things like herbs for savoury dishes, just adding what feels right at the time. Feel free to adjust spices to your own taste!

**You can really use any type of pasta for the noodles. I've used everything from spaghetti to tortellini to chow mein. I prefer using the "fresh" pasta that you can buy in supermarkets because they take less time to cook through. Recently I've really enjoyed using chow mein because the noodles are so thin. One thing to be aware of with noodles like chow mein is that they continuously absorb liquid, so if you have leftovers it's a good idea to strain the liquid out of the noodles and vegies and store them separately in order to avoid the whole thing turning into noodle sludge.

To the kitchen!