dinner on a dime: leek and potato soup

Leeks have been my 2009 food obsession.  I have to admit, before this year, I had not really been exposed to them, and definitely had never cooked with them.  But we went to Paris this past spring on our anniversary, and let me tell you, leeks were everywhere!  And they were so delicious.  I’ve spent much of the summer and early fall trying to work leeks into nearly everything, making them a normal and comfortable part of our kitchen.

If you don’t believe me or have never tried them before, I have this suggestion: buy a whole brace of them, chop them up, and sauté in, oh, about a half a cup of butter.  Salt, pepper, fork, eat.  Your perspective will change. It will.

Now that the weather is cold, soup is on the mind all the time!  It’s a great evening meal, cozy, even light.  Kind of like the winter equivalent of a summer salad for dinner.  A couple of weeks ago, I threw together this really simple leek and potato soup, based on the inspiration of a couple of online sources and what I had on hand.  It’s yummy and oh so easy, plus chic and relatively cheap.  Ready?

Aside from what you have in your cupboards, you’ll want these items:

Leeks (3-4 good-sized)

2 lbs-ish Red Potatoes ( I used small ones)

1 lb Raw Shrimp

Everything else you will probably have on hand already.

Now, start by chopping a half of a large onion (or so).  I used red onion because it was what I had:

Oh, and boil your potatoes at the same time:

I know, that looks like many, many… but they were baby potatoes, so the scale’s a bit off.

Clean and chop the leeks – we won’t be using the dark green stuff:Aren’t those just the prettiest things you’ve ever seen?  I could just look at leek close-ups all day.  That and chopped piles of food.  So dang pretty.

Let’s melt some butter and/or olive oil in a pot:

And sauté the onion and leeks…

Let them get translucent and even start to brown (caramelize) a little.  Then you deglaze the pan – I used sherry, sometimes I use dry vermouth because it’s cheap and we have it around always, or you could use wine if you had some open, or even chicken broth.

Let’s check in on our potatoes…

And they are fork tender , so we can just drain and smash them straight in the pot.  Then add that to the leeks along with some milk and a teeny bit of heavy cream:

You can also add a bit of chicken broth to cut the creaminess to your liking. Let it simmer a bit to meld the flavors, during which you can drain your shrimp (mine were frozen, so I defrosted them under cold running water):

And then your gonna want to melt more of this:

You can never, ever have too much butter and shrimp together.  It’s a self-evident truth. Well, close.  Sauté the shrimp in butter just barely enough until they are cooked and pink, and then squeeze a teensy bit of lemon juice and add fresh parsley.  Be sure to not overcook it, many a good shrimp is ruined this way (believe me I know from experience, sadly).

Now we blend our leek and potato soup:

…and we wish, wish, wish we had an immersion blender.  You know those little hand-held gadgets that you can use directly in your pot?  I so want one of those!  But I can’t see purchasing it myself for just no special reason, so if anyone wants to add it to my Christmas list…

But I digress.  Dinner is served!

It’s casual, so we’re eating at the counter/bar:

Add crusty bread and white wine, and you’re there!!  Yum.  But what did this meal cost us, Johnnie?

Well… we had shrimp, so it may not be as dinner-on-a-dimey as our previous soup post.  It certainly does cost more than fast food (yuck), but not by much. Let’s take a look:

Leeks – $1 each, local farmer’s market ($4)

Red potatoes – 79 cents a pound ($1.58)

Red onion (half) – about 30 cents worth

Shrimp – Trader Joe’s crazy good special $5.99 for a lb!

Milk and cream – let’s say about $1.50 worth?

Butter – 50 cents worth

Okay, so that adds up to: $13.87 for our grand total.  This makes four generous servings, so about $3.48 per serving.  Take out the shrimp if you’re not in a seafood mood, and you’re down to $7.88 or $1.97 per serving.  Not bad, right?

We ate half of it, and then saved the second half, which I served cold as a first course for a meal the next day.  It’s really good both ways.  And the best part:  no bacon!

Happy cooking!