Video Recipe: Leek & Potato Soup

From time to time I like to find good cooking videos to share with you.  These videos must meet my criteria as a home cook.  I look for videos using locally produced, in season produce with recipes that can easily be duplicated in the home kitchen without using a lot of fancy kitchen equipment or expensive ingredients.  I stumbled upon Chef Keith Snow's videos on YouTube while searching for videos for my gardening blog.  Chef Keith is the chef on the television show Harvest Eating dedicated to seasonal eating and author of Harvest Eating Cookbook.  I love his philosophy that if your second-grader can't read it you don't want to eat it when it comes for food ingredients.   Chef Keith is delightful with his down home, unpretentious, home cooking style.  Here Chef Keith shows how to make leek & potato soup which is very close to the way I make potato & leek soup. 

There is the misconception that making soup is time consuming or even difficult when in fact that is furthest from the truth.  The best part about making soups is as Chef Michael Smith so eloquently puts, it's cooking without a recipe.  Keep a few jars of homemade chicken stock or other homemade stock on hand. Then with a few vegetables and a little seasoning you have the makings of a tasty soup that can be ready for serving in a half hour or less.  You can stir in pasta, rice, barley, lentils, meat, fish and so much more.  There's no need to every have a boring bowl of soup when you make your own.  I recommend using a stick blender (immersion blender) for smooth soups.  You can use a blender or food processor but a stick blender is a lot easier and less to clean-up.