Sunday, December 21, 2008

Soup's on!

Tess spotted the sun dogs right away this morning as we set off to deliver her papers. Oh baby, it's cold outside. Minus seven degrees with a hefty northwest wind that took our breaths away as we turned the corner onto Cessna. Rosy cheeks weather for sure! It was cold, but still a very clear, crisp, beautiful morning. Picture perfect weather for the Christmas Holidays.
The papers were delivered in record time this morning. We trotted back home, but I wasn't ready to go inside just yet. The garden wore such a beautiful, crystalline veil and the pond was covered with a most intricate, feathery frost.
The snow is piling up on Friley Road. The greens in my window boxes are frosted with a good six inches and the perennial beds are now asleep under the deep blanket of diamond-encrusted snow. I broke out the snowshoes yesterday morning and tromped to the market. As Dewey and I headed off cross country, snow started to fall. It was magical.

Today is a good day for Great grandma Cora's Dutch potato soup. I remember my mother waiting until the last minute to make this for supper. She would pull out the pressure cooker to blast the potatoes, and every time, a celery seed would catch in the pressure nozzle. The pressure would build and blow potato soup onto the ceiling. So my two sisters and I would peel more potatoes! A good day for a steaming bowl of soup.

Aardappelsoep - Dutch Potato Soup

6-8 diced potatoes
1 chopped onion
2 minced cloves garlic
1 diced stalk of celery
2-3 tsp. celery seed
1 cube chicken or vegetable bouillon
3 T. butter
2 c. homemade chicken broth
1 c. heavy cream
1 c. skim milk
salt and pepper

In a large soup pot, boil potatoes in chicken broth until tender. Do not drain. In saucepan, melt 2 T. butter and saute onion, garlic, celery, and celery seed until tender. Add this to potatoes in soup pot. Add bouillon, cream and milk. Add 3rd pat of butter. Simmer for 30 minutes. With a potato masher, mash this mixture a few times in the pot to thicken the soup. Season with S&P and serve with crusty bread.

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