It's the first recipe that Julie attempts to cook in the book and hers turned out wonderfully--and the recipe only calls for 5 ingredients and 3 steps--so I figure it'd be an easy first recipe for a soup-making novice such as myself. Author Julie only writes about the general method in her book so I followed recipezaar.com for exact measurements of ingredients (I cut down on the butter and salt by a third since JC is known to be a heavy-handed with the butter and it was fine.)
1) Wash and cut leeks and potatoes and throw in a pot with water and salt for 45 mins (no stirring even needed!)
You're supposed to use russet potatoes but I had my random colorful spuds from Trader Joe's laying around, and I'm kinda interested to see if my soup will have an indigo-ish hue from my purple potatoes.
2) Mash potatoes with a food mill (whatever that is), or a fork (what I did, which leaves courser bits of potato pieces that the food mill but I think the lumps gave the soup some character)
3) Stir in butter and serve
Although it's not the prettiest looking soup (and would probably be a more appetizing creamy color if I used normal potatoes), it's almost inconceivably tasty and hearty considering it's just water, salt, potatoes, leeks and a tab of butter! And what other dish could you make with just those ingredients? Two helpings later, I'm still quite impressed with myself. I had to get buy two stalks of leeks ($2.23), my existing potatoes cost me $1.99 and I had salt, butter and water on hand so my 8 servings of soup cost me a total of $4.22. Enough for a couple of bowls plus leftovers!
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