remembering ireland

It’s been a while since I last posted anything, but in the light of the holiday season and exorbitant amounts of good food, it’s time to pick things back up. I’ve been pretty busy and haven’t done cooked much or been able to try any new restaurants. I finally moved out of my parents’ house and settled enough to start cooking.

Yeah, I realize I live in Texas, but believe me it does get cold here. Nothing better to warm you up than a good soup or stew! Bear with me as I back track a few months- I was in Ireland this summer and had some of the best vegetable soup I’d ever eaten. It was always pureed which was something I’d never seen, and always delicious. Ok, back to reality. I wanted to recreate a recipe similar to that. I try to eat pretty healthy so I avoided using any cream, but here’s my recipe…

Pureed Vegetable Soup

• 5 carrots
• 5 stalks of celery
• 1 leek- white part only
• 1 white onion
• 4 cloves garlic
• ½ c. white wine
• 1 yellow squash
• 2 cans chicken broth
• 5 sprigs fresh thyme (my sprigs were really small)
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 Tbsp olive oil

Sauté the carrots, celery, onion and leek in the olive oil. I cooked them until they started to get a little brown. Add the white wine and deglaze the pan. Add potatoes, squash, garlic, broth and simmer for 10-15 minutes. Puree soup add fresh thyme sprigs and salt and pepper and simmer for 15 more minutes. I garnished mine with fresh parmesan and some chewy ciabatta bread.

I used an immersion blender to puree mine, but a regular blender would work great too. It turned out really good and creamy, despite not adding cream and the potatoes and carrots helped thicken the soup. Next time I might try it with only one potato because it was really potatoey- if that’s a word. The best part was the reminder of my awesome vacation and sitting in that poorly lit pub in Adare, Ireland. Throw a Guinness into the mix and you might think you were actually there.

If anyone has any recommendations/changes for my recipe, I'd love to hear them!