Hello everyone, Jess here. Happy Sunday to you!
Tonight’s dinner was full of Springdell goodness. We had Shredded Oven Roasted Purple Potatoes with Red Kuri Squash Steaks and Eggs, along with pan-fried breakfast sausage.
For your entertainment, here is the plating of Sarah’s other half, a runny nosed clown:
For dessert, we had one of the three Pumpkin Pies I had baked this afternoon.
I’ve already posted recipes for all of the above, so with the abundance of celery in our CSA, I decided to try a new celery based recipe tonight. This one is from Martha Rose Shulman of The New York Times and was shared as part of a feature called “What To Do With The Rest Of That Celery“.
Ingredients:
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 small onion, chopped
- 1 large or 2 medium leeks, white and light green part only, cleaned and sliced (save the greens for another stock)
- 6 celery stalks, sliced (about 3/4 pound – this measurement was more helpful as our CSA celery is not uniform size)
- 1 medium-size russet potato, (about 10 ounces), peeled and diced
- 4 garlic cloves, peeled and halved, green shoots removed
- A bouquet garni made a bay leaf and a couple of sprigs each parsley and thyme, tied together ( I forewent the bouquet garni and added loose thyme and parsley leaves)
- 7 cups chicken stock (to keep it vegetarian/vegan, veggie broth or water works too)
- Kosher Salt and Freshly ground pepper to taste
For the Garnish:
- 2 teaspoons walnut oil (in lieu of this, I sprinkled a little bit of pulverized walnut on mine)
- ¼ cup very thinly sliced celery
- chopped chives or chervil (optional)
First, sauté the celery, onion and leek in a pan for about 10 minutes, being careful not to brown it and adding a light sprinkle of salt at the 5 minute mark.
Next, add your garlic and potatoes and stir to combine. Add your water/broth and bring to a simmer for 30 to 40 minutes. Remove from the heat.
Remove your bouquet garni (or in my case, just the bay leaf) and carefully blend using an immersion blender or regular blender (carefully working in batches). The next step is to pour the soup through a strainer, pushing the soup through using a pestle, bottom of a ladle, or wooden spoon. (Mine poured directly through the strainer with absolutely nothing left behind – it made me realize how spoiled I am by the Vitamix).
If your soup lost it’s heat during the blending process, return it to the stove, heat back to the desired temperature, and season to taste. Jus before serving, garnish each bowl with 1/4 teaspoon of walnut oil, a thin slice of celery and the chives/chervil. I found the garnish sunk into my broth as if it were quicksand, the Vitamix really liquified this stuff!
The verdict? It’s quite a tasty soup, particularly when measuring the healthiness of it. I agree that the homemade chicken stock helped it along, I might have found it too watery if I used water instead.