Whisk Wednesdays: Julienne Darblay

       Ta Dah...last week's class assignment, Julienne Darblay (Creamed Leek and Potato Soup with Julienned Vegetables), which is found on pages 133-134 of Le Cordon Bleu At Home.  Can you even believe it?  Thanks for being patient...you are being patient, right? 

      I usually try to do these cooking bits on the weekends, but since my weekends are spent breathing chlorine fumes for the foreseeable future, who knows how timely these posts will be until the long course swimming championships are finished...probably not very.  Justsoyouknow.  

       We love this soup.  Love, love, loved it.  I am the soup queen...I would be a happy camper if I had nothing but soups and salads for the rest of my life.  Seriously.  I think I was led to Whisk Wednesdays by something in the universe telling me there was going to be Soup Learnin' in the near future.  Happy to be here. 

      I made the stock before I left for Bloomington last week as I figured I had made stock enough times that it would be fairly effortless, and it was, producing a very flavorful stock, I might add.  Probably my preferred stock recipe from here on out actually.  I like making stock and then parking it in the frig overnight so that I can scrape as much of the fat from the top as possible (it hardens when cold and you can just lift it off easily).  Works really well and gives the stock a nice clean taste without all that fat floating about.  I also like making stock as I can control the salt added.  We are not really crazy on the salt around here (Mark getting his daily fix in potato chips and all), so this has immense appeal for me. 

      The rest of the soup I threw together this morning as Wednesday is my cooking day for others...and a busy one it is today, so it's anyone's guess whether I will get this week's soup finished or not today...not by 5:00 for sure, so this may be the only post tonight. 

      Julienne vegetables are not my thing yet...my knife skills leave a little, a lot, to be desired.  I figure I have nowhere to go but up, so I am looking forward to that.  In other words, don't look too closely at the veggies.  I tried...I had plenty of rejects, which is nice as I like eating rejects that have no calories and are actually good for you.  After steaming the veggies (yes, I know, I was supposed to dunk and boil them in water and then toss the water, but maybe the original recipe person didn't know you lose a lot of nutrients that way, so I steamed instead) and setting them aside,  I processed and strained the leek/potato mixture, reheated it, added the little bit of cream, and here it is...one very fine bowl of soup! 

      This soup is time consuming...well, more time consuming than purchasing it already made anyway.  I like the fact that it is assembled in various steps and therefore fits in really well with how I cook around here.  You know, up at 5:15, do a little something before heading out the door to swim practice, come back do a little more, go back to retrieve swimmer, come back do a little more, head out again for whatever, come back do a little more, and on it goes throughout the day...my kind of cooking, bit by bit, and it all comes together brilliantly at the end.  I like this French cooking because so far all the steps can be done in small bits and all those bits add to layers and layers of flavor...very nice.  

      I will make it again.  And again.  And again.  (Just not today...and if I don't get this week's soup done after dinner tonight...might be golf involved, what can I say...too early to tell for sure...then I will post two soups next week...I think.  I know, I said that last week, too...I am proving to be totally undependable in these matters, but I will definitely try. )

      More chlorine all this weekend and all...Matt is swimming 50 Free; 100 Free; 200 Free; and 100 Backstroke...keep those good thoughts coming, okay? 

      Julienne Darblay...don't you just love saying that?  It sounds so sexy.  Hop on over to the other Whisk Wednesday members and see what we are making this week...more soup!  Click here and then click on the blogroll members sites.