September 10th, 2020
So it is Thursday
The picture I took today did not pass mustard, so this is from last week during our trip to the beach.
Pre-weekend recap
Posting efforts, until today, have been pretty meager on my part. So I thought I would do a Thursday post on what I did this week. It has been a whole week since my last post. I'd like to say I have been doing a lot of commenting, but alas I have not.
I did make totally home made tomato soup twice this week. trying to get it down for the winter food blues. Over the course of spring and summer I have learned to make some pretty decent throw together cream style soups.
I have been wanting to add potato leek cream soup to the list, so Sunday I bought a leek. Problem was I did not look at any recipes and only bought one leek. Every recipe I saw called for three leeks. Being an experiment, I am glad I only bought the one though, three seems like it would have been a bit leeky.
It actually came out pretty good, most recipes are for 4 or more servings, well there is only the two of us, and I don't really follow recipes to much, I was just looking to get an idea. Well to go with my one leek, I had one big potato.
So some butter, some garlic, some avocado oil, and onion, I let that all heat up till it was heated up enough, then added in a pinch of celery seed, and some dill seed, and a little pinch of garlic salt and some plain ground Himalayan pink salt, with a dash of pepper.
While all that was heating and blending together, my wife peeled and cut the potato, and I took care of the leek. A lot of the recipes said to make sure to wash the leek real well because of sand, so I did, and it did not need a super thorough cleaning and several washes like they all said. Maybe that is why there are so few leek users out there, scared away by the complexity of several washes for the leek, once was good enough for the one I bought.
So into the pot goes the leek pieces to soften up with the other starting stuff. About 5 minutes on the leek and ten minutes total for the normal blending of flavor parts.
So I added the one cup of heavy cream, lots of the recipes said milk or half and half and some said chicken broth. I used the heavy cream, I wanted think and creamy. So cream and potato bits get added.
Okay it is a cream soup, so a lot of stirring is required, so for the next ten to fifteen minutes I stirred, some took short breaks and stirred some more. pretty soon the potatoes were getting soft, so off the stove heating element for the pot and contents placed into the blender.
I really need to get one of those dip-stick blenders. Pureeing hot stuff in a blender is a scary thing to do. So I get it all blended together and nice and pearly smooth, (nice way of saying kind of lumpy yet still smooth like shaved ice). It was pretty thick and I added in one cup of water to the blender after the first dump out to get the rest of the potato leek combo out.
Back to the stove and burner for more heat, a few chives add in and once again some more stirring. The one cup of water to get the rest of the mixture out of the blender was just right. It made for a nice smooth soup after another 10 minutes of heating it was ready to eat.
It was pretty tasty. I was pretty surprised. It did need some bacon bits for a topper, a little bit of shredded cheddar cheese would have been nice also, but even with out the toppings it was surprisingly good. A successful potato leek soup.
The success of that experiment led to a pretty nice white cheese sauce for a noodle and veggie (pasta primavera thing), which also was quite good.
Today was go out for dinner and see what was on the menu, beef and corn chowder stew, it was great tasting, just a tad heavy on the sage, but otherwise very good, a new soup to try in the future at home. I have been enjoying the cooking experiments. So far most of it has been edible.
Along with the food experiments, I've just been having fun and keeping myself entertained.
I love soups.
It is not cool here yet and I am not rushing it, but it did cross my mind a couple of days ago that when it does get cool, I want to try making more soups than I normally do.
Oh! ...and I love the photo with the driftwood closeup and the sea in the background. Nice shot.
My wife and I have been trying to move away from all the canned and prepared foods for the last several years, and in the winter we do like hearty soups and stews and chili. I just need to learn more about spices, which ones go with what kinds of soup best.
edit: The picture was from the trip we took last week or the week before, I tried a lot of different views to get a somewhat nice foreground element and the inlet and mountains in the background.
I use to cook and prepare things all the time, but I have slowly gotten away from it. I want and need to get back to it. It is much healthier way to eat.
I've been meaning to buy a very small freezer so I can make soups and things and then freeze some of it since it is only me here. That way I could eventually have a good variety of the "good stuff" on hand all the time. Maybe I'll get back on that and see if I can make it happen soon. I do have a freezer on my refrigerator, but those are really best for long term storage I don't think.
I remember having to cook for one, two is not much easier, most recipes are 4 to 8 servings, so I have to re-think the recipes so I don't over fix, or I over eat. We do end up freezing some of the left overs if there is enough for two more meals.
Once I was on my own, I use to cook a day on the weekend as if I was serving 4. I would eat my initial meal and then put the leftovers away and take various combinations of them to work for lunch the next week, of course adding in other items with parts of what I had pre-prepared to keep it from becoming boring. I don't mind left overs in general.
!ENGAGE 25
ENGAGEtokens.Thank you !
It seems you all did delicious food there. But I think I have no idea what you're cooking. I only know how to cook basic homemade food.
By the way, you're not posting every day because you said it's been a week since your last post.
It was mostly different soups. The big experiment was potato leek soup.
I'm not much of an every day poster, usually two or three a week at the most.