I'm in the midst of packing for a quick trip up to Portland, but I wanted to share this leek soup recipe before I go back to attempting to shoehorn my clothes, laptop, toothpaste and such into a carry-on. The soup. Well, I was quite excited about how this particular leek soup turned out. I think a couple things came together to make it a success. First, I kept the soup base simple, then tricked things out on top with an electric green dill oil and crunchy toasted almonds. Second, I cooked everything together - the leeks, potatoes, garlic etc. - and THEN added hot broth at the end.
Here's the dill oil. I made it by pureeing fresh dill and olive oil. Done. I used a portion of it in the soup base, and the remaining as a drizzle across the tops of the hot bowls of soup. Soup aside, the oil is also great drizzled on just about any kind of egg, over tarts, on potato dishes/salads - it even made a cracker spread with goat cheese a little more special.
The biggest headache related to cooking with leeks is getting them clean. You want to make sure there is no grit hiding. I regularly find pockets of mud three layers in. It's sneaky like that, and you really don't want it in your soup.
I also decided to make quick work of the leek chopping here, by enlisting my food processor. I wanted the leeks chopped well, into little flecks, so they'd collapse down and cook into soup that wouldn't necessarily need to be pureed. I mean, there's no reason you couldn't puree the soup if that's the texture you prefer, but I mashed up this soup by hand, and liked the more rustic texture.
If you give this a try let me know. Even better, report back if you take it in a slightly different direction you end up happy with. I really loved the way the toasted almonds worked as a finishing touch. I had a bowl with croutons as well, and it just wasn't as good.
As promised, here are a few more Yosemite pics. For those of you who missed the last post and are thinking about a winter Yosemite visit, there are a few more pics here. I thought everything was going to be frozen over, but there was water running beautifully throughout the park.
I have a hard time resisting a through-the-windshield shot. The first is the view from the parking lot through a frosted window first-thing in the morning, and the other is the wide open fields approaching the foothills. I was amazed at how green everything was approaching the mountains. Later in the year everything dries out in the heat and turns shades of gold and yellow.
Continue reading Leek Soup with Dill Oil... 
Source: http://feeds.101cookbooks.com/~r/101Cookbooks/~3/dAa3P7IEMa8/leek-soup-with-dill-oil-recipe.html
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