Creamy Potato and Leek Soup

For my  first seasonal dish of autumn I decided to make a creamy potato and leek soup. To avoid packing on layers of insulation around my midsection, I used just a tiny  bit of actual cream and made up the difference with plain Greek-style yogurt.  The soup was still thick and hearty, and the yogurt lent a very subtle and pleasant pungency to the soup. This is an easy dish that tastes even better the next day.

Creamy Potato and Leek Soup

• 2 leeks, tops removed and chopped fine
• 1 yellow onion, chopped fine
• 3-4 cloves garlic, minced
• 4 medium Yukon gold potatoes, peeled and diced  into 1/2 inch cubes
• 1/4 cup cream
• 3/4 cup Greek yogurt
• 3-4 cups vegetable broth 
• leaves from about 4-5 springs of thyme
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1tbsp butter
  
• salt and pepper, to taste

 In a stockpot, saute the leeks and onions in the olive oil and butter until soft. Add the garlic, 1/2 the thyme, and a pinch of sailt and pepper. Saute a few more minutes.

Add the potatoes and broth. (Add just enough broth to cover the potatoes plus about 1/4 of an inch.) 

Simmer  until the potatoes are tender. 

Taste the broth and season with thyme, salt, and pepper to taste.

Working in batches, do a rough puree of  3/4 of the soup in a food processor. 

Add the puree back to the soup and add the cream and yogurt. Stir well.

Bring back to a simmer and season to taste. 

I served my soup with homemade focaccia bread, the subject of a future post.

Arroz con Gandules: Rice and Peas with Homemade Sofrito and Sazon

In my fantasy, this is the sort of dish my Puerto Rican grandmother would have made for me growing up. She would have that is, if I were Puerto Rican and had been lucky enough to grow up with a grandma who actually liked to cook (my grandmother liked to drink her dinner, if you catch my drift). 

In fact, when I think about it, many of my dishes are attempts to create a culture of food that simply never existed in my family. Sure, my Mom made some killer casseroles at holidays, and since her death I lovingly re-create them, in all their fattening cheesy glory, every year. But if you're talking about tradition, slow cooking, a real love for and relationship with food ... well, that's something I've had to discover on my own. Hence my Liberian bean soups and African stews and Indian curries and fried green tomatoes and what I imagine to be comfort food from all over the world. 

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I first tasted brabant potatoes -  garlicky, buttery, bite-sized bits of glorious, crunchy starch -  a little over a year ago at Galatoire's in New Orleans. As addictive as they were,  I tragically wasn't able to manage more than a few bites of this classic Creole side dish, as I was already full by the time they arrived at the table. Between the Louisiana seafood festival, the Creole tomato festival, lunch at Commander's Palace, several gumbos, and a (meatless) muffaletta, I had, truth be told, been full for days.

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I must have suffered some sort of carbohydrate-related trauma as a child.  Did an evil babysitter wrap me up in a puff pastry and stick me in the oven? Was I left in the woods with only bread crumbs to guide me home? Or perhaps I was frightened by the premature exploding of a can of Pillsbury breakfast rolls. I can't really say for sure.

But I do know that after years of shying away from working with dough - "I'll mess it up! I'll ruin it!" was my panicked refrain -  I have suddenly - and incurably - become absolutely tart-y for making savory tarts.

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It seems only fitting that my husband should be the author of my very first guest post, considering he takes all of the amazing photographs on my blog.  And shortly after tucking into this scrumptious birthday feast he concocted for me, I realized we had found the perfect subject for him to write about! 

Anyone who knows me at all knows that I've had a lifelong love affair with the city of New Orleans. One of the luckiest things about my adult life is being able to share this love with Trix. The first bunch of times I visited the Crescent City my palate was more in the po boys / beignets realm of New Orleans cuisine, but as Trix and I explored the city together we were able to share many culinary firsts: Commander's Palace, K-Paul's Louisiana Kitchen, Mr. B's Bistro, Galatoire's, and many more. Eating the food of New Orleans has played a large part in our own growing enthusiasm over cooking at home.

Fiery Liberian Bean Soup

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