Leek and Potato soup

I have always liked soup in winter. The thing is that they have always been kind of typical soups....Chicken, beef vegetable, chili (yes it's a soup more than a stew)...that sort of thing. But I always wanted more. Something I could make that would be simple, good and filling on a cold winter evening. I stumbled across this soup in a restaurant and decided that I wanted to learn to make it. I was even more pleased when I found that Alton Brown has an application for it.

Needless to say, I tried his first. There is a very popular Julia Child application and that is next. I need a bunch of leeks though.

I'm out. I guess they are my new favorite allium. So good and full of yum.

So, here is the soup. It isn't difficult and it allowed me to use my Christmas gift from Jeremy. You start with the leeks, trimmed and split. They need to be washed first. If you want to know why they should be washed...please note the number of devices on the cutting board here <-----

Now please note the amount of dirt that came off them...

No joke. Wash your leeks. And behind your ears. That's what mom says.

They go into a pot to sweat and cook down for about 20 minutes. Of course they are chopped roughly.

After cooking them down for a while, add some vegetable stock and the potatoes. This cooks for another 20-25 minutes, or until the tubers are tender.

After cooking down, hit it with the immersion blender. Mine is a shiny new red KitchenAid model. It is sweet! Convertible - the head comes off for easy washing.

Then some salt to taste and white pepper is preferred to black (I have no white pepper here - grrrrr) and garnish with scallions.

It was oh-so smooth and delicious. Not only that, but filling.

I also did something out of scope of the application - I added cod to it. I was only able to get a fillet which I won't settle for again. I would prefer a decent size hunk to sit in the middle. The fillet broke up after being cooked in the milk (separate pan - I was concerned that the fish would affect the soup if I cooked it in the same pot) and it wound up being in pieces. It wasn't bad - the flavor was still good. I would prefer a larger chunk so I could place it in the middle and pour the soup over it.

Next time. I will make this again. Very good. Like I said, next time Julia's recipe.