Potato Soup

Hello, everyone! The world has melted here. See below. Also, it's time for soup again!

Potato this time. Smooth, comforting, and a little spicy. We start with the star and co-star of this blog, of course.

The usual suspects plus some unexpected guests. I guess I forgot to show you the potatoes, but you can use your imagination.

Cauliflower, onions, apple, parsnip. Start with chopping the Cauliflower. 

Next, slice the half-apple and onion, and throw them AND the cauliflower into hot olive oil.

Saute this bunch until a bit brown and very wilted.

Chop the potatoes and parsnips into smallish pieces. Hey! Leave the skin on the potatoes; did you know that you could survive on ONLY potatoes "in their jackets" and be nutritionally sound? That's why. The skin is the best part! Anyway...

Throw them on top of the softened veggie/apple mix, and add veggie or chicken broth to just cover

Let simmer for about 20 minutes, or until the potatoes are soft. Blend in batches in a blender, or use a super awesome immersion blender like I do because my awesome parents gave me one for Christmas.

Add the juice of a lemon, plus salt and pepper to taste, along with a dash of worcestershire sauce. Enjoy, good for a cold day.

Swiss Chard Bread Pudding

Today, I'm taking advantage of the grocery store. The persistent cold weather, pictured below,

is retarding the ability of local farms to produce the beautiful bunches of greens I've come to expect in April. So, off to the grocery store I go.

This bread pudding is based off of this recipe by Kitchen Vignettes. I'm halving it, roughly. We start with beautiful swiss chard. Red stalks, green leaves.

2 to 3 garlic cloves, an onion, and a handful of chopped parsley make up our base and aromatics.

Fry 'em up!

Once the onions turn translucent, chuck in the chopped chard. Cover and steam...

until wilted, like this:

Meanwhile, make the base. About two cups of whole milk go in with two eggs and about a cup of cheese. Some shameless advertising here: Milk from Foxhill Cheese House in Port Williams.

And eggs from Jordan's Natural Acres.

Cheese (old cheddar, but add grated swiss and parmesan too!) goes in

This is all whisked together with a teaspoon of salt and a half-teaspoon of pepper. Now the bread. Cut up whatever leftover loaves you have to make about three cups of bread cubes. If you want a dense pudding, use dense bread. If you want it lighter, with pockets of filling interspersed throughout, use airy bread. I opted for dense. Below are halves of two rye loaves.

This works fine for gluten-free breads, too. You may end up with a less chunky, smoother bread "puree" after the bread soaks up the milk and eggs, but if you want to avoid that, add the bread to the mix just before putting the pudding in the oven. 

Cut them into cubes, like this:

Now dump the wilted chard/onion mix into the milk and eggs and cheese. Stir.

Throw in the bread cubes and stir until it looks like this! 

If you're working with really stale bread, let this sit for 15 - 30 minutes, adding more liquid as necessary, until the bread cubes are soaked through.

I put this in the oven for an hour at 350, but I think slightly less time at 375 would be good as well. If all else fails, wait till the top is golden-brown before taking it out.