Hey look at this, two posts in two days, I do believe I am on a roll! As I have mentioned in earlier posts I was working on getting a potato & leek soup refined and just needed to get round to actually cooking it. Well with Mrs Cuddly still not feeling too well and not managing to have anything strenuous on the ol’ digestive juices it has been down to the soup to keep her alive and kicking.

That does remind me though, yesterdays post about the tomato soup is a one hit wonder. It is nice freshly cooked but it seemed to turn bitter as it cooled and went to reheat. Perhaps it’s the seeds from the tomatoes that turn it bitter when it’s been liquidised? Anyway please bare that in mind if your going to use it then I would either work out your quantities to suit or just be prepared to throw a lot out after you’ve cooked it. I’ll try and work on that in a couple of days.

Getting back on track is the potato & leek soup which I have just finished cooking and I managed to get a couple of pictures before it all got eaten/drunk. It’s quite simple to make and only takes about 30 minutes to make.

spud-leek

Ingredients

  • 3x potatoes
  • 3x trimmed leeks
  • 3x celery
  • 1x vegetable stock pot
  • 1x chicken stock pot
  • handful fresh basil
  • 40g Primula light (1/4 tube)

Optional

  • Croutons
  • 1x additional potato

The reason I put an additional potato as an optional extra is that I scalloped it and cooked the potato, broke it up a little and put it into the soup for actual texture.

Method

  1. Cube up the 3 average sized potatoes and put on to boil with some lightly salted water. You’re blending them up so if you make it small then it’ll cook;
    If your using the additional potato I put it on in a separate pan just after step one with slightly salted water.
  2. Whilst the potatoes are cooking, slice up your celery, leeks and basil and just leave to the side.
  3. Boil the kettle (enough to make 1 litre of stock), pour into a jug and add the stock pots.
  4. When the 3 potatoes are cooked drain away and put them back in the pan along with the leeks, celery, basil and stock. Put this back on the heat for a few minutes just to soften up the celery a little.
  5. Pour in the cheese and then use a hand blender or what liquidiser and blend it thoroughly.
  6. Pout into bowl or a mug and add a few slices of the optional potato and serve. If you’re using croutons then sprinkle on top and then enjoy.

If you don’t have croutons you could just cube up some bread and toast it, dry fry it in a pan. We cubed up some wholemeal bread, lightly salted and sprayed with olive oil frylight and cooked them in the Breville Halo with the paddle attachment. This gave them an even toasting and covering and took about 7-8 minutes to cook.

For added roughage we don’t peel the potatoes, as when it blends you won’t see it or taste it