Potato and Leek Soup

A darker, but still delicious potato and leek soup

For this weeks soupy I created a potato and leek soup. A much loved soup and one that I have tried many times, but never created myself I thought it would be interesting to test out and quite frankly I was craving a hearty and classic winter-type soup such as this one. Overall it was pretty easy and took a lot less time than I thought, especially since I was really just softening the potatoes and the leeks and adding the appropriate flavors. I also ended up with a darker version of a potato and leek soup (see pic that sort of looks like a pea soup), which I later learned that most potato and leek recipes don't encourage the use of the darker stems (top part) of the leeks, which I did. This resulted is a different twist on the soup, but still remained consistent to the general idea of a potato and leek soup, or rather a my own leek with some potato soupy. Here's how to make it:

Potato Leek Soup

Ingredients:

3 cups of vegetable broth
2 cups of water
1 cup of heavy cream
5 leeks, thinly cut up (using whole leek, including dark part)
1 yellow onion, chopped up into small squares
3 pounds of potatoes, peeled and cut into squares
1 green onion, thinly cut up
1/2 clove of garlic, chopped up
salt and pepper, to taste
Servings: 6

Directions:
Add the broth and water to a pot and set to a medium heat. Chop up the leeks and the onions into thin slices and the place it into the slightly boiling pot. Peel the potatoes and cut them into squares and place them in the pot, along with the scallions and the garlic (about 20 minutes later). Cover and let cook for 30 minutes. Place a fork through the potatoes, if soft add heavy cream, salt, and pepper. Blend together with a hand blender, where you should end up with a puree. I found that my mixture was way too thick, so I ended up adding 1/2 cup more of water and a splash more of heavy cream. Remove from the heat and serve in your soupy bowls. Enjoy!

P.S. As I mentioned in the intro I used all parts of the leek, including the darker part (top), but many recipes only suggest using the lighter part (bottom), which would make the color significantly more lighter and close to the look of a potato. I liked how this tasted more leek-based than potato, but again that is your preference and really you can do whatever you like when you are creating your own variation of a soup.

Seriously Soupy Serena