Potato, Leek & Ham Soup

I went to the farmers market this morning and found some great leeks - or leek, since I only bought one...

I've actually never used leeks before, so I went on a forage through the interweb for some good recipes to try it out in and found one for a Ham, Potato and Leek Soup on SimpleRecipes.com that sounded worth a try.  Plus, I had some ham in the freezer that I needed to use up, so this sounded perfect!

I did make some modifications to it - most significantly the addition of garlic - yum!!

Potato, Leek & Ham Soup
Serves 4-6 depending on whether it's a meal or appetizer
Prep Time: 10-15 minutes 
Cook Time: 25 minutes

Ingredients:

• 1 Tbsp unsalted butter
• 4 cups leeks, thinly sliced
• 4 cups chicken broth
• Potatoes (I used about 15 fingerlings that I got at the market, but 2 large russets would work fine too), peeled and cut into 1/2 inch cubes
• 1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper
• 2 cups diced ham
• 1 tsp chopped garlic - about 1 chopped cloves
• 1/4 cup milk (I used 1%)
• Salt to taste
• 3 Tbsp fresh parsley

1.  Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

2.Add the leeks, cook about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. 

Until they look like this...

2. Add the potatoes, garlic, chicken broth and pepper.

3.  Reduce the heat, cover and simmer 25 minutes or until the potatoes are tender.
4.  Using a blender (or food processor), process until smooth (or you can leave some chunks in - up to you). 

3.  Stir in diced ham and milk.  Garnish with the parsley.

Salsamole? Guacasla? Avosalsa?

I was craving fresh salsa... the chunky kind that just tastes like summer...

We had gone to the market and ended up with some ripe avocados, which never seems to happen to us - we always get the ones that are hard as rocks.

So I wanted to combine the two - but we couldn't decide what it should be called.  The hubby voted for Salsamole - which I'm a little partial to, but maybe not totally accurate.

Anyway, it ended up being pretty great - and easy to make!

Salsamole

Ingredients:

• 2 large tomatoes (or a bunch of cherry tomatoes - more flavorful, I think)
• 1 large white onion
• 1 ripe avocado
• Chopped fresh cilantro to taste - I used about 1/4 cup but I like cilantro
• 1 jalapeno - if you like it spicy, leave the seeds in, or if you're like me and you're not too big on spice but just want some flavor, take the seeds out
• Juice of one lime

1. Chop the tomato

2. Chop the onion and add it to the bowl

3.  Chop and add the cilantro

4. Chop the avocado and jalapeno, add them to the bowl.  Squirt the lime juice over the bowl and mix.
5. Dig in and enjoy!!!

What I've been eating

Apologies for it having been so long since I last posted.  Live has been crazy the last few weeks.  The junker car we bought broke, so we had to buy a new one - which promptly also broke.  My mom came to visit and then I got sick :-(  But I'm back now and I wanted to give you a taste of what I've been eating while I've been gone.  Unfortunately, I forgot to take photos of most of it... oops! But they're all still great recipes!

Jamie Oliver's Eggplant Parmesan - This was fabulous! It wasn't a traditional eggplant parm where you fry the eggplant, but it ended up tasting that way and was a TON healthier.  It also reheated well the next day for lunch.

Butternut Squash with Browned Butter & Thyme -  a fabulous fall side dish! We got some great butternut squash at the market and this was just the perfect recipe to try it out.  Comfort food at it's best!

Mushroom Lasagna - this was AMAZING! It tasted like an alfredo sauce, but without any actual cheese! My mom said, "restaurant quality!"  Keep in mind, this isn't particularly easy and takes up a bunch of pans, but it was well worth it.  I used portobello mushrooms and spinach lasagna noodles, but I think next time I would mix and match a few different types of mushrooms.  Give it a try and let me know what mushrooms you used and how it tasted!

Recipe Recommendations

I thought it might be good to share some of the recipes I tried from other sources recently, without modifications, that I found to be really great.  You should give some of them a try too!

Baked Parmesan Garlic Chicken Wings from Steamykitchen.com.  These were awesome, amazing yummy goodness and I can totally understand why she made them one of her favorite recipes.

Chicken with Shallot-Apricot Sauce from CheapHealthyGood This ended up being really good - something a little different with a savory bite from the balsamic vinegar.

Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Balsamic from whiteonricecouple.com.  If you've never been into Brussels sprouts before, you haven't tried these.  Tangy from the balsamic, and super-easy.  These will definitely become a staple in my recipe book!

Golden-Crusted Brussels Sprouts from 101cookbooks.com,
I had some leftover Brussels Sprouts from the recipe before and on the spur-of-the-moment, trying to come up with a veggie to go with dinner tried this out.  They were pretty awesome too! Hubby liked these better and I liked the balsamic ones better.  Try them both and let me know what you think!

What do you think of this kind of post? Interesting? Helpful? Should I keep doing these?

Slow Cooker Pot Roast with Vegetables

This was the first recipe I've actually come up with all by myself! I wanted to have a basic pot roast, but every recipe I looked at had cream of something soup in it, and it just didn't sound like what I was going for.  So I put this one together and gave it a shot.

It turned out great and made enough for the Hubby and me and then leftovers for both of us for lunch tomorrow.  There was enough liquid in the bottom that you could make a gravy if you were so inclined (I'm not a big fan, so I didn't bother).  These are admittedly not the most fabulous photos ever (I kind of forgot about taking pictures at the end until we were already eating), but it's a simple, way easy meal that makes you feel like you accomplished something!

 

Serves 4
Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 to 2 lb chuck roast
• 1/2 lb potatoes (I used small white potatoes), quartered or cubed
• 3 large carrots, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
• 2 small onions, cut into wedges
• 3/4 cup of red wine
• 1 T Worcestershire sauce
• 1 T fresh basil, chopped
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1 cube of beef bouillon

1. Put the carrots, potatoes and onions in the bottom of  the slow cooker

2. Brown the meat in a skillet and place in the slow cooker on top of the veggies.

3. Combine the red wine, Worcestershire sauce, basil, oregano and beef bouillon and pour over the roast and veggies.
4.  Cover and cook on low for 10-12 hours.

10 things I've learned about gardening in our first year

1. Weeds suck - especially stinging nettles.  Hopefully, this won't be as much of an issue next year, as we're trying to kill them off this fall.

2.  Tomatoes from your own garden taste TOTALLY different from those you get from the grocery store.  They aren't even from the same planet.  As someone who has always hated plain tomatoes, I learned that I ADORE garden tomatoes.  They are awesome!

3. It's important to spread out your plantings and to plant successively.  Otherwise you end up with three bags of potatoes that you need to eat all at once.  And you get one harvest of carrots, etc.

4. I need to be more creative in using/preserving our harvest.  I was unprepared for the volume this year and you can only make so much zucchini bread and give it away before people stop taking it! Next year, I need to be prepared to can/dehydrate/etc to keep the produce around longer.

5. Gardening requires patience.  I don't have that.  This makes gardening hard.

6. Courgette/Zucchini plants get HUGE! They will take over your whole garden if you let them.  Planning for this space is essential.

7. Gardening gives you an excuse to be outside when it's nice out.

8. Growing stuff from seed is hard - especially if you manage to get them outside and you have huge frost in May, right after you put them out.  But it's fun and rewarding and I'll try it again next year.

9. Fresh herbs rock! They make your food taste so much better.  A dish that was completely bland with dry herbs is amazing with fresh ones.  Once you grow fresh herbs, it's hard to go back.  And when you have them fresh, you spice up every dish.

10.  Gardening is fun, rewarding and it's a really great feeling to eat something that you grew and cooked with your bare hands from seed/plant all the way through!

Tour of Britain - I beat Bradley Wiggins

Ok... so maybe I didn't beat Bradley Wiggins, really. But I was on my bike and he was on his bike and I was in front of him and I got to where I was going before he did.  So... I'm pretty sure that means I beat him.  Even though, the race hadn't technically started... and I finished about 400m after I started.

So... the story is that Stage 7 of the Tour of Britain left from Bury St. Edmunds this morning and the bike shop I work at was given the opportunity to be part of the community cyclists who led out the stage.  Basically, we hung out in front of the starting line and rode just ahead of the pros for about the first 400m of the neutral zone - before they actually started racing.

Very fun - cool to be inside the barriers instead of on the sidelines for once.  I pretended that all the spectators were there just to see me.  Made me feel pretty popular for a few minutes. 

We saw Bradley Wiggins and Geraint Thomas walking down the stairs from signing on, but we weren't really close enoug h to get a photo.  We did get to see all the riders ride by after we pulled off, which was pretty cool (although I didn't manage to get any pictures of these guys specifically). But I did manage to get these pictures of some of the peloton as they rode past!

Fun times had by all... plus, today was the day I managed to beat an entire pro peloton... including Bradley Wiggins!