Sunday, July 6, 2008

What's Your Favorite Soup To Make?

I just finished making colcannon - I got the recipe here (I will also post it below). It uses kale, carrots, onions, garlic, olive oil, salt, pepper, and then it is topped with mashed potatoes. I never heard of the veggie kale until I started to get veggies from the farm, and the only way that I like it (so far), is when it is made in the dish colcannon. The flavors of the veggies and potatoes are delicious!

So, after I boiled the potatoes (to make the topping), I drained them and saved the water to use as broth in a future soup. Now I need to decide what soup I am going to make...

What would you make?

Recipe for Colcannon
1 Bunch of Kale or Lacinato Kale, cut into thin slices and then cross cut fine
2 Onions, chopped
5 cloves of garlic
2 C grated carrot
1/3 C olive oil
¼ t pepper
1 t salt
6 C potatoes, diced with skins on; more nutrition, richer flavor, less work
¼ C minced fresh parsley

Saute the onions, garlic, and carrots until soft. Add the kale all at once and stir often over high heat until well wilted. Add ¼ C water, salt & pepper. The steam will rise, cover the pan and allow steaming at low temp for 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Place this on the bottom of a 9x13-buttered pan.

Parsley-Mashed Potatoes: Dice 5-6 cups of potatoes. Barely cover with water, add 1 t salt. Bring to a boil and then simmer until potatoes are very soft, about 15 mins. Pour off water (save for soup stock). Add about 2 C milk, 4 T butter, and parsley. Mash by hand or with mixer. Add salt (I used about 1 tsp), pepper (about 1/4 tsp) and 1/8 t nutmeg to taste.

Spread parsley mashed potatoes over the kale mix. Top with 2 C of your favorite cheese, cheddar is great. Bake at 350 degrees for one hour.

3 comments:

The Gang's Momma! said...

This, my dear, is the food of my ancestors :) MMMM, sounds yummy. I may try this in the fall. They all boycott soup in summer :)

For the soup stock, you should try some of the broccoli soup I posted this winter, or that sweet potato corn chowder I make. Check in my "recipes" label. Would also make a great replacement for water in homemade bread recipes . . . I'm just sayin' :)

The Gang's Momma! said...

I meant they boycott mashed potatoes in summer. I was thinking of soups :)

The Literary Gourmet said...

Wow--kale! Even the LG has not branched out into kale! It brings back good memories of my roommate in college, who had a pet bunny. She was always buying kale to feed him, and we used to wonder who besides health food devotees would eat it. But my good friend is adventuresome enough to do so--bravo!