Soup’s On!

Tuesday is almost over – it seemed to go on – and on – and on – and on.  🙂

My day was spent doing school work and attending class.  It’s still weird not to have high school swim practice in the afternoon.  I have some extra time – and, apparently, I spend that time doing homework!  🙂

Breakfast was Kashi blueberry waffles with light cream cheese and strawberry jam.

Lunch was another Lean Cuisine – still no excuses.  It was the last one that I had on hand, so I’ll have to be more creative tomorrow.  🙂

Classes – in a word – were boring.  It’s getting to that point in the semester where I spring break would come in handy.  In the spring, you get to have a week off right in the middle – but you have to wait until Thanksgiving in the fall.  I could really use that week off!

Tomorrow, I’m teaching.  I was a little nervous going into it, but now I’m really nervous.  Because the teacher I observe is also my professor for the methods class, she told me to tell the class what I was doing.  She proceeded to go into this long thing about how I’m walking a fine line and I have to be careful about not going over it.  She assured me that I was okay and she’s excited about it and she approved it awhile ago!  But she also told me that she has an alternate lesson ready if I change my mind.  (Of course, I took this as, “Do you want me to change it?  Should I change it?  OMG – WHAT AM I DOING?!)  Oh – and one person has already opted out because the material is a bit controversial.  (Female genital mutilation)  So – now I’m feeling *really* nervous.  I am going outside of my comfort zone – I’ve never taught this kind of material before and I’m trying to prepare themselves for questions that might come up.  Granted – I’ll only be covering the “controversial” material for about 10-15 minutes, I’m sure it’s the stuff that the students will remember.  Who knows what will happen.  I’ll be sure to give a full report tomorrow – if I don’t “cross the line” and end up in some teacher jail.  😀

After class, it was time for dinner.  I was really excited about it!  I love soup.  And, for some reason, I love pureed veggie soups.  The Alton Brown Leek-Potato Soup sounded fantastic – easy and cheap!   The nice thing about the Food Network website is that they provide some videos.  There was a video for this soup.  It is a good thing that there was because I probably would’ve done things a lot differently.  (Like browning the leeks).  In was – in one word – AWESOME.  It was filling, comforting and down-right delicious.

 

Leek-Potato Soup

Here’s the recipe (Straight from foodtv.com):

Ingredients

• 1 pound leeks, cleaned and dark green sections removed, approximately 4 to 5 medium
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
• Heavy pinch kosher salt, plus additional for seasoning
• 14 ounces, approximately 3 small, Yukon gold potatoes, peeled and diced small
• 1 quart vegetable broth
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1/2 teaspoon white pepper
• 1 tablespoon snipped chives

Directions

Chop the leeks into small pieces.

In a 6-quart saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter. Add the leeks and a heavy pinch of salt and sweat for 5 minutes. Decrease the heat to medium-low and cook until the leeks are tender, approximately 25 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add the potatoes and the vegetable broth, increase the heat to medium-high, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low, cover, and gently simmer until the potatoes are soft, approximately 45 minutes.

Turn off the heat and puree the mixture with an immersion blender until smooth. Stir in the heavy cream, buttermilk, and white pepper. Taste and adjust seasoning if desired. Sprinkle with chives and serve immediately, or chill and serve cold.

Notes:

We used half butter – half olive oil to sweat the leeks.  I think I might switch it to all olive oil next time.

We used chicken broth – we had it on hand.

I substituted half and half for the cream – I might even try substituting regular milk.  Maybe 2%?  I’m not sure about skim milk, but we’ll see.

I cut the half and half and buttermilk in half (1/2 cup of each) – a cup of each just seemed like a lot!  I think I might even be able to cut it down to a 1/4 cup of each next time – maybe eliminate it completely.

I didn’t have white pepper, so I just used black.  I’m sure it’s just as good.  (I should get some white pepper!)

We served it with some bacon on top – it added some nice texture and a little extra flavor.

I can’t wait to have some tomorrow for lunch!  There isn’t much left – but enough.  🙂

I think it might be time to try a butternut squash soup.  The husband isn’t too keen on it, but I think it’s definitely worth a shot.  The squash in the stores look so tempting – but I’m not sure how to attack them.  I especially want to try spaghetti squash.  Any one have any advice?

Now, it’s time to finish the Biggest Loser (I can’t believe some of these numbers!!) and have some dessert – some sugar free Jell-o pudding.  Yum!

G’night!  🙂