Sick Boyfriend Food 2

So guess who got sick as soon as it hit winter? That Boyfriend of mine. So I did the nice thing and went by his house to cook him some soup since he never eats when he gets sick. Wanna know how he repaid me? He got me sick and I took time off work. He didn't visit me because he was sick. Boom, love right there.

True love.

Anyway, I made him these two simple soups from some of the stuff I picked up that weekend at our local market. Its all winter, in season produce, so now is a great time to buy these ingredients and make your own soup. Buy some tasty, fancy arse bread and soak up these soups. My Boyfriend seems to enjoying dumping white rice in the leftover vegetableless soup for some reason.

For the potato soup, its a very simple dish to make and you can honestly knock it out in a few minutes, depending on how picky you are about cutting stuff up. The ingredients are very forgiving however you do need  a very good stock to balance it all out. I've used generic washed potatoes found at Coles, I've also use baby Nadines that I've gotten from an organic grower at the Jan Power Markets. Go by the way, that stall is the only one with gourmet potato species, including some blue flesh potatoes!

Its entirely up to you, whether or not you leave the potato skins on. I find the older the potato is, the thicker and slightly bitter the skin becomes. The organic baby Nadines had a lovely thin skin that was barely noticeable. The skin is of course where all the nutrients is. Otherwise, I guess scoop off the skins and bake them with salt, paprika and cheese or something. I am also a big fan of potatoes dunked in a mixture of rosemary, salt and olive oil baked. I'll share my recipe someday.

 For the mushroom soup, this is basically the same ingredients I use in my breakfast mushroom recipe. Take away the stock and cream and its the same thing, oh and substitute the word bulb for clove. That being said, I don't normally roast entire bulbs of garlic of breakfast mushrooms, ain't nobody got time for that. Cut up the mushrooms however you want, but the more surface area you have the faster they will cook, the more flavour you will have and the prettier the soup will look if you leave the mushrooms chunky. I normally use white button mushrooms as they are easy to find.

For roasting garlic, it completely changes the flavour of garlic becoming soft, sweet and really nutty with a hint of garlic. Add to absolutely everything, mashed potatoes, soups, bread, cheese whatever strikes your fancy. There's not even a hint of garlic breath and its amazing when you have a cold to ward it off with that much garlic! Please however, do NOT remove the outside of the garlic bulb aka the paper part. If you bake garlic without the paper, the outside becomes hard and gross, much like cooking prawns without their shells. I don't know where I learned to roast garlic from but apparently I've been doing it wrong! Here is a very good blog explaining the ins and outs of it all!

For the cream used in this recipe, I use whatever is marked down in the supermarket. I've used thickened cream, single cream and even dolloping thick cream. I don't find it makes all that much of a difference, it just needs that hint of creaminess/velvety texture to it. I think sour cream, yoghurt, buttermilk or even milk will do in a pinch. Notice that the amount of cream is handily half of what is generally the smallest size of milk commercially available outside of long life.

Potato and Leek Soup

Uses: Sick boyfriend food

Ingredients:
500g-750g of potato, diced
2 large leeks, white parts only, sliced thinly
1L of chicken stock
100ml of cream
Salt and white pepper to taste
Butter

Instructions:
1. Heat up a large saucepan/soup pot on medium-high. Dice up your potatoes and leeks.

Imagine this with wayyyy more potato

2. Melt some butter, enough to coat the bottom of your pot. Saute off your leeks, poking them with a spoon or something until their rings all fall apart and they soften, 3-5 minutes.
3. Throw in your potatoes and the stock.

POTATO AND LEEKS

4. Lower to a simmer, scoop off any foam that appears.

Blessed by the god of student housing

5. Once the potato has cooked to your liking, I dunno maybe 15-20 minutes, throw in your cream and season appropriately. Once the soup has amalgamated and foam starts appearing, scoop it off and then serve the soup immediately.

Chunky!

*If desired, puree the entire soup. Do it in batches, hold down the top. Hot soup gets everywhere.

Breakfast Mushroom Soup

Uses: Sick boyfriend food

Ingredients:
500-750g of mushrooms, sliced thinly or diced very finely
1L of stock
100ml of cream
1 large sliced onion
1 large bulb of garlic, roasted and cooled
1-2 tablespoons of thyme
Olive oil/butter
Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:
1. Heat up a saucepan/soup pot on medium high. Heat up an oven to 200C.
2. Slice off the first 1cm of garlic. Wrap your garlic in a little nest of aluminum foil, top and bottom, or a large baking dish with a foil lid. Drizzle olive oil over the top of the papery bulb and sprinkle liberally with salt. Do not remove the outside paper of the bulb. Bake for at least half an hour

These were cheap and nasty 50c piece sized garlic bulbs. Still delicious

2. Peel and slice all your mushrooms. Or just wash and then slice them if you're in a rush.
3. Melt some butter in your pan/pot and cook your onions until they soften and begin to change colour to a lovely light golden.

You'd think I'd have enough sauteed onion pictures by now but nope

4. Throw in your mushrooms and thyme, cook for long enough that your mushrooms start releasing liquid and start shriveling up.

This

To this

5. Throw in your stock and start squeezing out the roasted garlic cloves into the soup. Don't worry about squishing the garlic anymore. I never find chunks of roasted garlic in my soup, they just melt away and become delicious soup.
6. Bring to a nice simmer and cook until the mushrooms are cooked to your liking. Scoop off foam!
7. Throw in your cream. Give it a few seconds and a few stirs to mix it all in and scoop off that nasty foam! Season and serve immediately.

My pick of the soups

*If desired, also puree this soup in batches with the lid firmly held down.