Dill Potato Soup with Smoked Salmon (Recipe)

I know what you're thinking.  Well, if you live in the same geographical region that I do, and are reading this post within a week or two of it's initial publication, anyway.  It's hot outside.  Mind-numbingly hot, with whole weeks at a time in the triple digits, which is uncharacteristic for the Northwest.  So what's going on with a potato soup?

Well, it's several different things.  The first is merely a matter of being cheap.  Just as in summers past, our house has expanded to contain guests.  Not Lotus this time, but Grasshopper, his girlfriend, and a pirate.  Potatoes go a long way, and this is Idaho, after all.  We always have them on hand, even more so than other staples like rice and beans.  We've eaten them baked, fried, mashed, and a soup only continues the progression.  The second thing is that we were gifted a bunch of fresh dill by my mother-in-law.  Our first instinct was to pair the fresh dill with fresh fish, but then our minds returned to the first point.  I still wanted a classic pairing, and dill and potatoes go quite nicely together.  Finally, and perhaps most importantly in the setting I've described, this soup doesn't require the use of the oven.  Just one burner on the stove, and only for half an hour.  It might not be actively cool like a gazpacho or raw food, but it seemed like a good plan for feeding six people on a budget on a hot day.

I started by roughly chopping six large potatoes.  I don't ever peel potatoes--most of the nutrients are in the peel, and their texture doesn't bother me, even in mashed potatoes--but be sure to give them a good scrubbing before cooking to get all the dirt off.  This went into a stock pot along with a large onion and two celery stalks, also roughly chopped, a head of garlic (peeled and crushed), a quarter cup of finely minced fresh dill, 1/4 cup of butter, five cups of chicken or vegetable stock, and salt and pepper to taste.  Bring to a boil, then simmer until the potatoes are tender, about forty minutes.

Once the potatoes are done add twelve ounces of evaporated milk along with two tablespoons of lemon juice and two tablespoons of olive oil, adjust your seasonings to taste, and puree the soup in batches in a blender or, if you're lucky enough to have one, blend it with an immersion blender.  Divide the soup into six bowls and top each with a teaspoon of minced fresh dill and a quarter cup of thinly sliced smoked salmon.  I didn't have any on hand, but if you don't want to use the salmon or want to be especially decadent, you could also add homemade croutons of rye bread.  So there you have it, a simple potato soup--perhaps out of place in the middle of summer, but truly worth eating when you are trying to save time, money, and effort.
 

The Sunrise Cafe (Review)

While my "real" job is as steady as can be, Wife often finds herself in flux.  Not that she is ever worried about being laid off, thankfully; her employment is more solid than that.  But working in child care, her hours can vary pretty wildly, especially during the summer.  Kids vanish for summer vacations, then come back with siblings who are normally in elementary school.  Some checks are small, and others....well, let's just say others prompt us to go out for breakfast on a Saturday morning.

It was that way last Saturday, when we came out from under a little financial dark cloud and decided to celebrate by getting something to eat.  We knew we'd have a great breakfast at the Egg Factory, but I'd already written about it.  That meant leaving the neighborhood, hitting a chain, or going to either Merrit's or The Sunrise Cafe.  The former is well known in town for being the "Home of the Scone" (despite the fact that what they serve, while amazing, is actually a sweetened fry-bread, not the hard English tea-time snack,) but the latter, in my opinion, has often gone unrecognized for having the best biscuits around.  Wife didn't care, so I voted biscuit, and we drove over to the Sunrise Cafe (7135 West State Street, Boise, ID 83714
208-853-7400.)

Fowler's Pie (Recipe)

I know we're well into December now (a by-product of time spent Christmas shopping and preparing for class in the Spring), but today's recipe involves Thanksgiving leftovers-kind of.  For the first time ever, I made stock with the turkey carcass.  It was a relatively simple process.  I placed the entire carcass in a large pot along with some chopped carrot and onion, a whole head of garlic that I peeled and crushed, a tablespoon or so of sage, half that amount of black pepper, and a carton of vegetable broth.  I added enough water to make sure the liquid covered the bird, brought the whole thing to a simmer, and covered.  I let the stuff cook for about five hours, then took it off of the stove and strained it.  The liquid had changed from murky and brown-the color of vegetable broth-to a bright straw yellow, and it definitely still smelled like Thanksgiving.  I disposed of the solids and put the fruit of my labors into the fridge to chill.

Slow Cooked Pork Shoulder with Rosemary Potatoes and Butternut Squash

Fall.  It is perhaps my favorite season.  The Boise State Broncos are dominating opponents on the blue turf, the unrelenting heat of summer fades, and the calendar is filled with family celebrations.  While it is still over half a month until Thanksgiving, the chill in the air was making me pine for the type of food that takes all day to cook, whose aromas fill the house and makes stomachs growl; the type of food that makes dinner an event.  I had to ignore that desire the week of Halloween.  Our house was filled with guests, and we turned to quick fixes so that we could actually spend time with our company.  Pizzas, burritos, and pasta dishes all helped keep us out of the kitchen while satisfying the various dietary restrictions of our temporarily extended household.  The food tasted fine, and I had a great time with my friends, but as the last of them left for Oregon on the second I started planning how I was going to cure my craving.