Leek Soup with Dill Oil

I'm in the midst of packing for a quick trip up to Portland, but I wanted to share this leek soup recipe before I go back to attempting to shoehorn my clothes, laptop, toothpaste and such into a carry-on. The soup. Well, I was quite excited about how this particular leek soup turned out. I think a couple things came together to make it a success. First, I kept the soup base simple, then tricked things out on top with an electric green dill oil and crunchy toasted almonds. Second, I cooked everything together - the leeks, potatoes, garlic etc. - and THEN added hot broth at the end.

Here's the dill oil. I made it by pureeing fresh dill and olive oil. Done. I used a portion of it in the soup base, and the remaining as a drizzle across the tops of the hot bowls of soup. Soup aside, the oil is also great drizzled on just about any kind of egg, over tarts, on potato dishes/salads - it even made a cracker spread with goat cheese a little more special.

The biggest headache related to cooking with leeks is getting them clean. You want to make sure there is no grit hiding. I regularly find pockets of mud three layers in. It's sneaky like that, and you really don't want it in your soup.

I also decided to make quick work of the leek chopping here, by enlisting my food processor. I wanted the leeks chopped well, into little flecks, so they'd collapse down and cook into soup that wouldn't necessarily need to be pureed. I mean, there's no reason you couldn't puree the soup if that's the texture you prefer, but I mashed up this soup by hand, and liked the more rustic texture.

If you give this a try let me know. Even better, report back if you take it in a slightly different direction you end up happy with. I really loved the way the toasted almonds worked as a finishing touch. I had a bowl with croutons as well, and it just wasn't as good.

As promised, here are a few more Yosemite pics. For those of you who missed the last post and are thinking about a winter Yosemite visit, there are a few more pics here. I thought everything was going to be frozen over, but there was water running beautifully throughout the park.

I have a hard time resisting a through-the-windshield shot. The first is the view from the parking lot through a frosted window first-thing in the morning, and the other is the wide open fields approaching the foothills. I was amazed at how green everything was approaching the mountains. Later in the year everything dries out in the heat and turns shades of gold and yellow.

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