Leek and Potato Soup

When I decided to make some touriere last week I had to buy some leeks. And of course it's cheaper to get a bunch of them rather than only 2 or 3. And as it happened they were on special, big bunches of 6 big leeks for under 5 bucks. Yippy! I immediately thought of making this soup. It's one of my favorite soups ever. Tastes really smooth for a bunch of onions! And when it's cold outside and you feel like having something velvety and comforting, especially after eating so much on Christmas, this soup is amazing. Sometimes I add chick peas to this for extra protein but not this time. I really wanted only the vegetables and that nice leek flavor.

So here's how simple this is to make. You'll need:

3-4 leeks, chopped (i only used 3 'cause they were pretty big, and also keep in mind they will wilt down when they cook!!).
3-4 medium potatoes, peeled and chopped.
1 medium yellow onion
2-3 cloves garlic
4-5 cups chicken broth
Salt, pepper, dried thyme, to taste.
1 TBSP each of butter and oil

Saute the leeks, onion and garlic in the butter and oil, on medium heat until it startes to soften. Add the potatoes, season, stir and add the broth.
Bring to simmer than turn down to med-low, semi-cover and cook until everything is soft.
In batches, puree in the blender, until it's all nice and smooth. Return to the pot, on low heat, check the seasonnings, add a bit of milk or cream if you feel like it ( I added about 1/3 cup 2% milk) and you good to go.



The perfect dunking item for this is a nice toasted bread with melted gruyere. Potato and gruyere and really good friends.



Bon appetit!

French-Canadian Tourtiere Phyllo Pockets

It wouldn't be Christmas around here without this traditional meat pie. All across Quebec there are many ways of doing it, and it's apperance differs form region to region. If you ask someone from Lac St-Jean and someone from Quebec City they will tell you a complete different recipe for THEIR traditional tourtiere. In and around Montreal this is how the middle looks like. But he way I "wrap" it though is kind of new. Tourtiere for us is usually done like a pie, with a flaky golden crust, and I LOVE that too, but wrapping it in phyllo like this allows me to have it many weeks after Christmas is over. Plus, I'm really not that good at making pie crust. This is safe...
When I was growing up we usually had tourtiere the way Grand-Maman Therese (paternal grandma) used to make it, with lots of leeks and 3 different meats. I've since then always made it the same. Well, this year it didn't come out exactly the same because, I believe, the leeks were a little more bland than normal. So I had to add some spices that are kinda "new" for me in this tourtiere filling. They still taste amazing though (I'm sure my grandma would approve), and I will be able to have my tourtiere fix for a while!



This recipe gave me 32 triangles total. And I packed them up real good, I could've stretched it a bit more. You can see on the picutres, when I cooked those 2 they kinda exploded...oh well, it's all going in the belly anyway!
It's a bit of a process making these, but it's so worth it! What I did is I cooked the mix a day ahead. That way it didn't seem like it took all day.
So first step:

3 lbs ground meat: mix of beef, veal and porc
2-3 big leeks, chopped
1-2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
3-4 potatoes, peeled and cut in half(or in 4 if they're big)
Salt and pepper

Mix all of that in a bowl, get in there with your hands and make sure the meats and leeks are well aquainted. Then throw it all in a big pot and cover with cold water, almost to the surface but not quite. I needed about 1 1/2 to 2 cups water.



Simmer on medium-low heat for about 1 1/2-2 hours, until the potatoes are tender.
Turn the heat off, take out the potatoes and mashed them up, but not into a puree! You need to have chunks of potatoes in there!!
Return them to the meat, mix and adjust seasonning. I added more salt, pepper, and the unusual I was talking about: all-spice and bit extra ground cloves.



Let it cool and put it the fridge for a few hours or overnight.
*Also, as it cool, you will see the fat come up to the surface. It's a good idea to skim a bit of it. If you don't do it right away, you can always wait until the next day, it will all be at the surface, white and harden and you can just scrape it off.
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Now comes the fun part. Like I said earlier, the traditional way to make tourtiere is in a pie crust. So if you want the full tourtiere experience then go ahead with that. But here's how I've decided to put my own spin on it:
I first learned to work with phyllo a while back in Whistler, making spanakopitas with my friend Jazz(Hi Jazz!!), and that's when I realized it would be a good idea to make individual tourtieres that way. It's a process, and it takes patience and delicatness (i don't know if that's a real word, but you know what I mean..). But it's easy when you get the hang of it. The most important thing to do when you work with phyllo is to get all you stuff ready BEFORE getting the dough out. Counter clean, small bowl of oil and brush ready, mixture out of the fridge, sharp knife, humid and clean dish towel...Ok, ready.
Take out the dough, unfold it and keep to one side. Take one sheet, brush with oil gently, take a second sheet, lay it over the first, brush again with oil, then repeat with a third sheet. After taking that 3rd sheet cover the rest of the dough with the humid dish towel so they don't dry. When the final sheet is all nice and oily, cut the dough length-wise into 3 strips. Grab a spoonfull of mix and lay it on the bottom part of the strip:



Then fold like a flag! Delicately, making sure all the filling stays in.
Once:



Again:



Etc...
Until you end up with a nice triangle (also lightly brush with oil):



Then you just keep doing that until there's no more mix. Yes, it takes time. Put some tunes on or something! I made these listening to reggae. Island music, wrapping a traditional quebecois meat mixture into a greek-looking pastry. With a nice spanish red wine on the side. Vive la culture internationale, huh?!
Also, if you see the dough is ripping when you brush it, don't worry, the folding process will patch it all up!

After each one, I put it carefully in a big ziploc bag, ready for the freezer. I fit 16 in each bag, not touching each other too much since I want to be able to take them out one or 2 at a time!!
When you're ready to eat, get a few on a cookie sheet, and bake at 400F, about 10 minutes on each side until golden and crisp.



THAT tastes like Christmas!!




Yes, go ahead and put some ketchup on it if you want...I do too, sometimes...

Onion and Chicken Soup with Mushrooms and Spinach.

Mother Nature is acting up today. April 27th, it's snowing. Personnaly I don't mind it so much because it is late april, it's gonna melt and tomorrow we'll be running in shorts again. But, today, it feels like late november. And in late november I make soups and stews and comforting hot meals. So the snow outside inspired me to make this awesome chicken soup loaded with onions and mushrooms. Earthy and delicate.



I already had cooked chicken in the freezer so I used that.
I started by sauteeing one big leek and one big yellow onion in oil and a little butter, for about 5 minutes. Then added about a cup of mushrooms and 2 cloves of garlic, salt, pepper, paprika, a bay leaf, couple sprigs of fresh thyme and dried chili flakes. Sauteed for another 2 minutes, added chicken stock(3 cups)and simmered until the onions were well cooked. About 15 minutes...
At the end I threw in the cooked chicken, 2 cups chopped baby spinach and 1/4 cup chives, let it all heat up and done!



With bread on the side, that's a pretty decent lunch.

Macaroni with Creamy Leek Sauce.

Here's another freestyle meal. It was originally gonna be mac and cheese but I remembered I had leeks kicking around in the fridge so I changed it to this. Instead of a rich cheese sauce I kept it simple with an easy bechamel/alfredo type sauce. It really hit the spot I tell ya'. And it took only about 30 minutes total to prepare. Not the healthiest(in the end I think I used about 3 tablespoons of butter...yikes!) but in my defense(...) I used "smart" pasta, low-fat milk and UNsalted butter. I had a bit of a sugar overload yesterday so this salty and very peppery meal kinda balanced eveything.



First, get some water boiling for the pasta. Finely cut 1 medium leek, it will be about 2 cups. Seems like a lot but they will shrink when cooked! But if you want less by all means...I just really love leeks! Slice 1-2 cloves of garlic.(Oh and btw this was just me eating so for 2 people double the quantities). Sautee in 1 tablespoon oil and 1 tablespoon butter, on medium heat, with salt, pepper and 3-4 sprigs of fresh thyme, until tender. Cover to help keep the moisture in.
Add 1-2 tablespoons of flour, stir and add about 1/2 cup to 1 cup of milk. Simmer very gently while stirring often, until the sauce starts to thicken. You might need to add a bit more flour, a bit more butter, and/or a bit more milk, just eyeball it...When it hits the consistency you want throw in some parmesan, about 1/4 cup, add the cooked pasta, stir it all to get the noodles all coated, check for seasonning, add more parm on top, freshly cracked black pepper, and it's done!



That's some good comfort food.

*I could've done the breadcrumb topping thing in the oven but I thought of it too late...next time!