Potato, Leek, & Spicy Sausage Soup

Last week, after record heat for March, we had a rainy day in Fort Collins. We didn't really have a crazy snowy winter, and I'll be honest - I didn't make too many hot, comforting meals this time around. I normally like to make a few hot dinners a week, casseroles, lots of roasted meats, baked potatoes, soups, chili.
This rainy day inspired me to make soup. I took some chicken stock that I froze a month ago (from that ONE roasted chicken I made), thawed it out right in the crock pot around 7:30am on the low setting. I didn't have much time that morning to prepare and add the vegetables to the crock pot as I intended to, so I added some Worcestershire, Cholula, salt & pepper, thyme and sage to the stock and left for work.
When I got back at 5:00pm, the beautiful smell of that stock was permeating through my house. I turned the crock pot to HOT and quickly peeled & chopped up Yukon gold potatoes and red potatoes and threw them into the stock. I had some spicy ground pork in the fridge, so I browned it and drained the fat into a separate bowl. Chopped up 3 leeks (then rinsed the hell out of them, that grit is nasty), and chopped up a red onion. Sauteed the leeks and onions until soft in a little bit of the pork fat until browned, then added them to the stock.
The stock turned into a really savory liquid and got those potatoes soft enough after 2 hours. Right before serving it at about 7:30pm, I added about a half cup of milk, and a little more thyme and sage to bring out more of that herby flavor.
Topped with a sprinkle of freshly minced green onion on top, this soup was so good. I had a toasted thin slice of sourdough on the side to have a little crunch with my meal. The spicy sausage with the thyme and sage and buttery Yukon golds really made the dish work! That warm balance of flavor was so comforting on that chilly day.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 quarts chicken stock
3 medium Yukon gold potatoes
3 medium red potatoes
1 T Worcestershire
1 T hot sauce (I like Cholula)
1/2 c. milk
1 lb. spicy pork sausage
3 large leeks
1 medium red onion
1 T thyme, separated
1 T sage, separated
salt & pepper

I ate it for lunch the next day, dinner the night after that, and lunch the day after that. Next winter (ok, even this summer), I'm going to have to make this again.

If breakfast was a human, I'd be a stalker.

I love breakfast and brunch on the weekends so much. Saturday and Sunday mornings are my favorite time of the week. Call me crazy: I sometimes obsess about it before I go to bed on Friday. Once in awhile you'll even see me at the grocery store for a special trip to refill my fridge with eggs on Friday night when everyone else is wining and dining and shaking their groove thang (I save that for Saturday). To get me through a tough workweek, I daydream of cheesy Denver omelettes, hash browns, warm tortillas, eggs Benedict, crepes....I better stop there or my extremeties will get numb with joy, I have just a bit more typing to do.

For Ryan and me this morning, it was scrambled eggs, canadian bacon, and home fried potatoes. I cracked three eggs into a separate bowl, added a dash of milk, many dashes of Cholula, salt & pepper, and whisked away with a fork. Oh Cholula, I put that s#!t in everything. Then it’s a slow scramble for the eggs until light and fluffy, with a generous melty topping of colby jack cheese. I slapped a few slices of canadian bacon onto a hot grill pan and they were crispy and carmelized within just a minute.


My favorite part of this morning's breakfast was the hearty home fries. I peeled and chopped three red potatoes, half a zucchini, half a white onion, half an orange pepper - cut roughly the same size. I sauteed them in olive oil and half a tablespoon of butter, and salt and pepper of course, until they got tender and slightly crisp.

To accompany the meal, I treated myself to a Snow Capped Rocky from Human Bean. That’s their white chocolate mocha. SO divine. Normally on weekdays, it’s black coffee or Americanos for me.

I know every weekend can’t be like a holiday at home. Real life kicks in, with running errands I can’t do through the week, waking up early to exercise, getting the dogs washed, needing to eat up the yogurt before it goes bad. But when I have time, it's breakfast indulgence in this house.

Emulsify Your Life

Emulsions are fun. Two liquids that don't ever mix together until you force them to. That's a pretty cool concept! Gives you the feeling like you're cheating nature a little, like an evil scientist trying his hand at cooking. I attempted to make mayonnaise while in a somewhat feisty mood:

"Mr. Extra Virgin Olive Oil, you get over here - I'll need one cup of your self-righteousness. Mrs. White Wine Vinegar, you little brat! I'll teach you for being so potent! One tablespoon and that's the last of you! Egg Yolk, you're such a fatty." I forced my liquid minions into submission with a wire whisk of fury, and they became an entirely different being. It felt so scifi.

Whisked the egg yolk with vinegar and a little water, then heated it up in the same bowl over a pot of simmering water until the mixture got to 150 degrees - about 4-5 minutes. Though it's still not a fully cooked egg, doing that felt "safer."

Kept stirring until it came back to being lukewarm, then whisked in the olive oil slowly. What resulted is a curious-tasting sauce, nothing like storebought mayo. The olive oil is such a strong oil to use - next time I'll use half vegetable oil, half olive. Might result in a smoother flavor. I added lemon juice, salt, chili powder, garlic powder, and paprika.

The gross part is that before I added the red seasonings, the egg yolkiness of the mayo made it look a little like the snot that comes out when you're sick. Sorry for that visual, but that's the evil scientist in me. I know it'll work just dandy on a sandwich.

All in all, it was an enjoyable time. Bwa-hahaha.

Huevos Con Dios

I always crave a hearty breakfast on the weekends. It feels so incredibly boring to have cereal or yogurt again when it's all I've eaten the past five weekdays for breakfast. I'd rather stay in bed. So I heated up our leftover refried beans, spanish rice, and ground beef mixture that I used earlier in the week for burritos, heated up a little queso, and scrambled some eggs. I lined a warm & toasty flour tortilla with the bean mixture and folded it in half - like a quesadilla. Topped it with the eggs, then queso, then salsa, and sour cream on top. Sliced a little fresh avocado on the side, and Houston we have breakfast. It was so yummy to mix the sour cream and salsa around the top. A tasty little mess. I'd like to give a shout out to my new favorite salsa we found at Beaver's Market - Amy Lasley's Rocky Mountain Salsa. It pays to be picky with your salsa. I prefer a zingy, chunky kind that tastes fresh and not like tomato paste. And not too spicy that you can't taste the rest of your food - leave that for wings or when you're only snacking on chips & salsa. And not too much stuff going on that you have more of a vegetable and tomato stew instead of salsa. Sounds like too much criteria, but I'm pretty sure you're picking up what I'm throwin down. Or smell what I'm steppin in? You know the crap I'm talkin about. Too many potty jokes for a food blog? Ok bye-bye now.

creamy chicken alfredo

There are probably fifteen reasons why I shouldn't have said ok to alfredo sauce Thursday night, most of them involving my digestive tract, but it sounded yummy and it was Ryan's idea. When he says he wants to be the head chef and I'll be the sous, it's a stupid idea to say no. A little roux to start, then cream, chicken broth, parm & mozz, white wine (yes, one you'd choose to drink from the glass). Add sauteed chicken & broccoli, pour it all over egg noodles. It was creamy, oooey, gooey, and other words that use multiple o's in the middle. This fooooood was way toooo gooooood for fancy foodie words, like "succulent" or "earthy" or "floral notes." Screw that. Just say, "mmglmb."

PS: Leftovers were just as yummy.

Coming soon: goat cheese cheesecake with vanilla pineapple compote.

beefy beany barley brothy

I've really wanted to use my crock pot lately. I keep putting it off during the week since I'm too lazy to cut up all the veggies before work, and when I get home from work the last thing I want to do is prepare for another day's meal. Did I say before that I'm lazy?

So a Sunday is perfect for crock pot cookin'. Got me some stew meat browning, cut me up some carrots/onions/celery/garlic. Add to heated crock pot with broth/beans/barley. I think the whole load cost $10. I'm going to freeze it. All in all, it's going to give me ten more meals. A very, very good idea.

it was good banana bread because ryan said so

I used to be a nervous wreck about baking - measuring the right amounts, making sure the baking soda wasn't over 3 months old, being out of eggs & not wanting to go to the store, having a floury mess over every countertop. My one-butt kitchen experienced a peaceful, organized symphony of baking glory today, however. I have my new stand mixer from my sweet mom to thank for it. I found two recipes from some new cookbooks I got for Christmas that call for very few ingredients: sour cream banana bread and lemon-lime tea cakes. I only had to get ripe bananas, lemons, and limes from the store - I had everything else. Lazy is my middle name. I hate recipes where I have to go buy things no normal kitchen has stocked. Tell me you have the following combination of ingredients at your house at this very moment and I will give you $10: heavy cream, mexican chocolate, turmeric.

Banana bread came first - set up my wet ingredients on one counter, dry on another. I heart mise en place. The stand mixer was awesome - I was done mixing when the oven beeped it was ready, and an hour later I had two beautiful brown loaves. Sour cream made the loaf thicker, and for baking two loaves at once, I sure timed it right. That never happens for me. I tried to talk myself out of eating a few crumbs off the corners, but it didn't work.



Then came the tea cakes - 24 mini muffins made with lemon and lime zest and their juices. This was probably the best batter I've ever tasted. While they baked, I made a simple syrup with more lemon slices, and poured the syrup over the cakes when they were done. They were so gooey and light. I think if they were regular-sized muffins, they'd be too rich.

I would sure hate to have a gluten problem.

With love and citrus,

Jabe