Roasted Potato & Leek Soup ~ Recipe

Remember those leeks that I mentioned having left in the garden? Well I did finally pull them up but not until after they had been hit by a hard frost *grin*. I had planned to make soup with them so I wasn't to worried if they froze but you know what, when I pulled them out of the frozen soil they came out perfectly clean! Now if only I could pull them out of the ground like that all the time :)

I was really excited to try making a creamed leek and potato soup using some of the potatoes and rosemary that came out of our garden as well.

I started by cleaning 12 of my leeks by trimming off the hard green tops and the roots leaving the nice white fleshy bottoms and then splitting them in half. My leeks were only 1/2 - 1 inch in diameter so if you are buying leeks you could use 4 really nice large leeks :) I then added 8 peeled and cubed medium sized potatoes, 1 large sweet onion such as a walla walla quartered, 1 large red pepper cut into large chunks and 2 sprigs of rosemary.

Place all of your vegetables into your roasting pan, toss with a generous splash of olive oil, some salt and pepper and roast at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for about 30 miutes or until all of your vegetables are fork tender. Mmm, the smell of them roasting is delightful *grin*.

Once your vegetables are cooked and slightly cooled it's time to pureé them in your blender :) Place a couple large scoops of vegetables in your blender with a good splash of milk and blend until smooth.

I decided to make my soup milk based but you could use chicken or vegetable stock in place of the milk if you like! I also found that the potatoes made the mixture quite thick while they were in the blender so if you have one of those stick blenders that might make quicker work of the blending so that you don't have to do multiple batches in the blender :)

Once you have pureed all of your veggies you can adjust the thickness of your soup by adding more milk or stock and season with additional salt and pepper to your liking :)

This is a delighfully filling soup and the roasted vegetables give it a yummy flavor. Plus with it being so smooth and creamy your children will have NO idea what is in it *grin*. The perfect solution to the picky eater LOL.

I paired it with homemade cheese buns and everyone loved it :) I hope you enjoy making some for your family.

Hugs,
Rosina

PS. Looking for more great recipes? Check out the Hearth & Soul Blog Hop

Nosy Cows & Potatoes

Come now... don't be shy! *grin*
My baby just wants to get a closer look at you and perhaps snuffle your pockets for some treats and lick your hand as a light hearted gesture of friendship LOL.

I just love this guy :) We picked him and his brother up last spring as 2 month old bottle babies just starting to be weaned and he is such a sucker for love. Never makes a peep unless you go by and don't pay attention to him and he loves to get a good scratch. Beware though he's a licker teehee.

All three kids headed out first thing this morning to lend a hand with the massive job of hilling the potatoes. I think perhaps someone was a wee bit hungry when they planted this year *grin*. They're growing beautifully though. Very healthy and if all goes as planned we're going to have a bumper crop!

I think they got the majority of the work done before it rained so hard late this afternoon that it soaked you in less than 10 seconds! The kids rather enjoyed the downpour and brought me a lovely fresh batch of grass, dirt and whatever else happened to get stuck to their boots today into the mud room. I swear with all the wet weather we've been having I'm going to start calling it the 'muddy' room! *grin*

No matter how much mud I had to clean today I had this beautiful quote on my mind:


Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom. ~Marcel Proust

Oh how I just love that as my children bring so much joy and laughter to my days :)
~ Rosina

Planting Potatoes ~ Outdoor Challenge Day 10

Well the good weather just keeps on coming :)
It's time to start planting the potatoes and my dad thought that our field would be the best one to plow for planting.

He ran our old 1952 Massey Ferguson with the plow attached to the back and dug a nice channel for planting in and then K went along it after with the shovel and dug in little holes so that they could be filled with manure.

On each little hole of manure L helped Opa cover it with a bit of dirt and then placed one of last years potatoes on top. You can see that they are definitely ready to go into the ground as they are covered in lots of long 'eyes'. Those are the sprouts shooting out of the potatoes :)

Have you ever grown your own potatoes and they have come out scabby when you've dug them up? Well if you used manure to fertilize them and you planted your potato right in the manure this could be the cause. In the past we have done this which resulted in lovely big potatoes but they were always covered in scabs. It won't hurt you but they're not as pretty *grin*. We started covering the manure with a little dusting of dirt before planting the potato on top and we cured the scab problem!

Everyone wanted to help so Opa had a lot of helpers :)
They planted 3 rows and just over 300 potatoes and they're not done yet!! If the weather holds they're going to finish on Saturday and I'll have to get some photos of the tractor in action :)

Do you have photos of your children enjoying the outdoors? Visit The Great Outdoors Challenge to join in the fun and you can also visit other participants and see what sort of nature fun they have been having by clicking on the names below :)

~ Rosina

Fellow Nature Players:lisa, sanders, angelina, phyllis, sarah, christie, jennifer, debbie, dong dong, denise, luisa, joy, stephanie, cori, alex, dawn, kristen, catherine, tricia, becky, christy, ruth, kari, courtney, branflakes, jessica, renee, haiku, brynn, amy, clemencia, sherry, leslie, lise, renee, anet, jenn, marina, amy, ella, marcia, karen, beth, julie, kyndale, kelly, lizzie, eileen, ag, mari-ann, cindy, robin, nicole, debbie, julia, anita, lisa, jenn, montessori, marita, jeannie, hallie, mandy, kangaroo, andrea, joey, carmen, teena, stephinie, gidget, elizabeth, emma, rosina, saminda, melissa, katie, becca, atouria, barbara, ariella, missy, elizabeth, sarah, eileen, lisa, stacy, jennifer, tulsileaf, lisa C, morticia, angela, rana, jamie, lisa c, luz, charley, heather, valerie, kirsten, rachel, annie, kendra, beth s, lindsey, michelle, megan, renee

Seed Saturday Finds

Well we hit the Courtenay Seedy Saturday this weekend along with hundreds of others! I thought being about 10 minutes early would give us sufficient time to find a parking place and amble over to the line but boy was I wrong. There was already two lines stretching for a good long ways in both directions along the building and we really had to hustle to beat the crowd coming behind us *grin*.

What a success!! It was fantastic to see so many people out :) The building was jammed full of seed tables, garden products, flowers and more. My main focus was to search out the seed potatoes and do it quickly because they never seem to be around for long with that many bodies roaming around LOL. So I quickly moved from table to table searching for the little nuggets and finally found some old favorites picking up a couple packages of 'Red Chieftans' and 'Sieglinde' which is an heirloom german variety that is super delicious :)

Among the sale tables were some really great displays as well. The above table was all about Mission Hill Farm's hazelnut trees and they had this great big bowl of hazelnuts to try. Of course the children all wanted to try one.

Who wouldn't when you got to crack your nut using this fun wooden nut cracker. I bet that if there had been some of these little gems for sale they would've sold them. I know I would have bought one!

The Comox Valley Exhibition (Fall Fair) committee always has a table every year where they hand out seeds to the children and this year they got a package of red romaine lettuce that sounds like it's going to be delicious and saved me buying lettuce *grin*. I picked up some Italian pole beans that are prolific producers of tender purple pods named 'Triumfo Violetta' from the Salt Spring Seeds table, old english shelling peas from Two Wings Farm and a package of 'Fava' beans that I'm going to experiment with and grow for dried beans. Should be fun!

The perfect end to the day was surprising everyone with a trip the the movie theater to watch the new Alice in Wonderland!! My daughter had brought our new Cheshire cat along with us that Jill had sent so I thought it would be fun to take a photo of him on his way to watch the movie with us *grin*.

My oldest two children loved the movie which was a mix of animation & real people and true to Tim Burton's style, a little on the dark side. It didn't quite catch the attention of my youngest and I must say that I was a little disappointed myself. I think that I was hoping that it would follow more along the original story of Alice in Wonderland but this is of Alice as a grown woman and how she must restore the crown to the White Queen and it just didn't grab me. I have such fond memories of watching the original and all the warm & fuzzy feelings that went along with it that I'm not quite sure how I feel about this one but definitely glad we went to see it :)

Let me know what you think of it, maybe I'm the only one that is stuck in the past with the happy mad hatter's tea party *grin*.

~ Rosina