{"id":870,"date":"2014-07-18T23:38:21","date_gmt":"2014-07-19T04:38:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pcandres.com\/?p=564"},"modified":"2015-11-06T15:12:42","modified_gmt":"2015-11-06T21:12:42","slug":"under-the-weather-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/?p=870","title":{"rendered":"Under the Weather: Potato Leek Soup"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0;float:none\"><iframe src=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/like.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fthesoupblog.com%2F%3Fp%3D870&amp;layout=button_count&amp;show_faces=true&amp;action=like&amp;font=arial&amp;colorscheme=light&amp;width=450&amp;height=30\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" allowTransparency=\"true\" style=\"border:none; overflow:hidden; width: 450px; height: 30px;\"><\/iframe><\/div><div id=\"attachment_566\" style=\"width: 330px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/Blazing-Sun.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-566\" class=\"wp-image-566\" title=\"Blazing Sun\" src=\"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/Blazing-Sun.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"320\" height=\"247\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-566\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Hot Enough For You?<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Summer has always been the worst time to be sick.\u00a0 When I was a kid, the loss of valuable vacation time to something as trivial as a cold, was enough to bring on bouts of childhood depression, also known as whining.\u00a0 When I became an adult, it got worse.<\/p>\n<p>Not that I\u2019m whining.\u00a0 That\u2019s a kid thing.\u00a0 I\u2019m just setting the table for a nice, healthy soup.<\/p>\n<p>The sun was out. The grass was green.\u00a0 And I felt like going back to bed in the middle of the day.\u00a0 But since it was so hot out, laying in bed only made me more miserable.<\/p>\n<p>It wasn\u2019t any better at night.\u00a0 In fact, I got kicked out of bed several times because my coughing wouldn\u2019t let my wife sleep.\u00a0 She tried to frame the move as therapeutic.\u00a0 \u201cThe humidifier will work better in the smaller spare bedroom.\u201d\u00a0 But I knew the truth.<\/p>\n<p>I needed a soup to make me well.<\/p>\n<p>Chicken soup would have been nice, but since it\u2019s the middle of summer, hot soup wasn\u2019t all that appealing.\u00a0 And cold soup? (Can you hear my kids groaning?)<\/p>\n<p>So with my head as congested and cloudy as a summer storm, I drove my daughters to the store to see what we could come up with.\u00a0 We picked out basil for last week\u2019s soup, carrots and parsnips for next week\u2019s soup, and\u2026<\/p>\n<p>Leeks.<\/p>\n<p>It seems so obvious now.\u00a0 Leeks are part of one of the most famous cold soups in the world\u2014Vichysoise, a potato leek soup which, because of the chicken broth at its base, might also do something to make me feel better.<\/p>\n<p>I haven\u2019t done a whole lot of cooking with leeks but I really like them.\u00a0 They\u2019re\u00a0 the onion\u2019s upper crust cousin. The two flavors are similar but leeks don\u2019t hit you over the head like onions and they don\u2019t make you cry either. At the same time the fact that the leek whites grow deep in the sand and mud makes them not only hard to clean but also very earthy and accessible.<\/p>\n<p>Culturally, leeks have a bit of a split personality too.\u00a0 On the one hand, they&#8217;re French:\u00a0 Vichysoise, running away, overbearing, the whole bit. On the other, \u00a0they\u2019re Welsh, Wales&#8217;s national symbol in fact: green, humble, and always willing to jump into a conversation (think Dylan Thomas).<\/p>\n<p>Which persona would show up in my soup, off-putting or engaging?<\/p>\n<p>Hint:\u00a0 Everything turned out just fine.\u00a0 Not that it didn\u2019t take me a couple of tries to get it right.<\/p>\n<p>The first soup I made used too much stock and wound up being overly thin.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t saute the leeks before adding the liquid either, so I lost some flavor there as well.\u00a0 It earned a unanimous thumbs down from daughters and wife alike.<\/p>\n<p>The second batch began differently, with antibiotics.\u00a0 Once I broke down and went to the doctor about my lingering congestion, I was able to give my potato leek soup the attention it deserved.<\/p>\n<p>It turned out great.<\/p>\n<p>I can\u2019t say this soup cured me, but it was a great relief from the heat, and the cold.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Potato Leek Soup<br \/>\n<\/strong>(serves 4-6)<br \/>\n1 lb leeks, whites only, sliced, quartered and thoroughly washed<br \/>\n1-2 T olive oil<br \/>\n1 lb potatos, peeled and sliced thin<br \/>\n6 cups stock (vegetable or chicken)<br \/>\n1\/2 cup dry white wine (optional)<br \/>\nSalt &amp; pepper to taste<br \/>\nChives, minced.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Saute the leeks int the olive oil until soft, about 10 minutes.\u00a0 Don\u2019t brown them.<\/li>\n<li>Add potatoes, stock, wine (if you like) and seasoning to the leeks, bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer for 20-30 minutes.<\/li>\n<li>Garnish with chives and serve warm or cool with grilled meat and a fresh green salad.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><em>Image Credit: The hot, hot sun, cropped, enlarged and clip arted<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Did this make you feel better?\u00a0 Or did it make you sick?\u00a0 I hope this soup lands firmly in the former category.\u00a0 Either way, let me know.\u00a0 I\u2019ll be reading <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">and<\/span> responding.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Summer has always been the worst time to be sick.\u00a0 When I was a kid, the loss of valuable vacation time to something as trivial as a cold, was enough to bring on bouts of childhood depression, also known as whining.\u00a0 When I became an adult, it got worse. Not that I\u2019m whining.\u00a0 That\u2019s a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,126,64,60,16,14,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cold","category-no-dairy-products","category-herbs","category-leeks","category-potatoes","category-no-meat-fish-poultry-dairy-or-any-other-animal-products","category-vegetarian"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=870"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2255,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870\/revisions\/2255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}