May 26th, 2008

I like to think that not that many people came yesterday because it was such a sunny, glorious day, and it had nothing to do with my husband being out of town! My neighbour and two other friends dropped by and we had a really nice time, although there is a TON of soup left over! I was showing Carol the freezer containers from the past few Sundays and she said I should have a Soup Clearance Sunday. You know, instead of making a new soup, heat up all the different ones I have and let people eat them up. Not a bad idea, but they might have to fight my husband for them!

On the menu was potato leek soup. This is one recipe that I never mess with because it comes from the Cooking Queen, Julia Child. Actually, I think it's a pretty standard French recipe, but I learned it from her when she was a guest on Emeril Lagasse. It's basically even cups of potato and leek and then one cup of water for each. In other words...3 cups of potato, 3 cups of leek, 6 cups of water. And for that combo, you add 1.5 tsp of salt. You bring it to a boil, simmer away until it's all tender, pulverize with a hand mixer (or very carefully in a blender), add some warm cream (1/2 cup for the above amounts) and season with pepper. That's it. And sooooo lovely!

For bread, I made up a couple of batches of the NYT no-knead dough, and then I mixed in Italian herbs, garlic powder, and parsley. Then instead of baking it in the dutch oven, I divided the dough into sixteen pieces and put them in muffin tins. I topped half of them with a pinch of shredded parm and the other half with a dollop of chevre pressed into the dough. Then I cooked them at 450 like usual for about 20 minutes. They came out as small, kind of hard and crusty rolls, perfect for splitting and then dipping in soup. I was pleasantly surprised as this was just an experiment!

And while I don't usually make a dessert (I don't want to set a precedent!) I did make some Rhubarb bread, using my favorite quick-bread recipe for pumpkin bread and subbing 3 sticks of cut up fresh rhubarb that had been roasted for 30 minutes in a little sugar water. It turned out excellent and since there were only four of us, I did bring it out and we all imbibed.

And that's it for this week. Now all I need is to drum up a few readers!