lucky portland

Well call me a loon but this Winter Hell hasnt really been that terrible. That being said I'll proabbly jinx it and we'll have a March full of nothing but rain, wind, and cold. With all this frolick inducing weather around I have been running more frequently, crafting, and cooking. On one of my runs this week I smelt my first daphne of the year, and then saw some daffodils popping up! If you've never had the chance to smell daphne it's has very citrusy floral perfume that comes from tiny clusters of purple-white trumpet shaped flowers. They bloom only once a year, and when they do I just want to surround myslef with their heavenly scent.

I got my first CSA box yesterday from hood river organics, and its fantastical! I've seen most of the items before, but I have never been adventurous enough to use them in my cooking. In that thar box up above is a half dozen eggs, four beets, three leeks, two bags of saute greens, one bunch of radishes, one box of micro greens, one brown bag of portobellos, raw herbed cheese, once baguette, eight carrots, seven potatoes, three turnips, and six pears. Whew! Thats a whole lotta organic stuff!

I figured that I should make something for dinner using at least two of the above ingredients, but pysch! I ended up using five! Holy balls batman, what could I have made???

 

Soup of course! The weather hasn't been that great. I also wanted to make something that could use up a good portion of the box o' produce on my kitchen table. So I started how I always do, with a glass of wine and a wondering eye. This night I ended up flipping through my Polish cookbook and using this leek soup as a platform for my csa soup spectacular. Oh and speaking of batman, that's me in high school when midriff was kind ok, especially when I weighed half of what I do now!


Polish Soup
Serves 2-4
Cook Time 1 hr(or so, depends on how much your drinking)

4 cups veggie broth ( beef would be good too)
3 leeks
4 potatoes
3 carots
1 Tbs butta
1 cup h20
1/2 green cabbage
1/2 tsp dill
sliced smoked kielbasa(optional)

1) In a smaller saucepan place 1 cup water, butta, and sliced leeks. Bring to a soft boil and let simmer.

2) In a larger soup pot saute kielbasa and carrots with a bit o butta. After those two get a good brown on, add the cabbage+dill and saute for a few seconds, then add the broth. Bring this to a boil and add the peeled cut potatoes.

3) Add the leek mixture to the big soup pot. The liquid should have reduced to about a half cup, but it should be extremely fragrant and the leeks soft.



4) Let this stay at medium heat for about 30min to get everything all nice and soft. I really wanted the potatoes to break apart and make the soup a bit thicker but we got hungry so this soup was on the fast track.

5) Serve and add salt to taste!


We ate cheese and baguette with this soup, and even went back for seconds! I have a feeling that the yum level of this soup would be amped up with a dollap of sour cream. It would also make it that much more polish.


xxoo