Grandpa's Home Cooking

Monet's Leek & Potato Soup

Soup was served at every evening meal in Monet's house. What a great idea. It sounds as if it was the customary 1st course. At our house, a delicious soup and a fresh rustic baked bread, and one of Grandma's beautiful salads is enough food to satisfy as our complete meal. Tonight I prepared Monet's Leek and Potato soup for our dinner. It is delicious. The soup and slices of a rustic French bread provided us with enough food for a hearty cold winter night dinner. Afterward, we relaxed in our living room listening to classical music and enjoying a fire in the fireplace.

I'm happy to have a beautiful used copy of Monet's Table, The Cooking Journals of Claude Monet. The book is available online and at bookshops. You might enjoy using this book to prepare meals for your table. This book contains beautiful photographs of Giverny, writing about the family's life at Giverny, and Monet's favorite recipes. The book contains recipes for Soups (11), Eggs, Sauces, Appetizers and Side Dishes, Poultry, Meat, Game, Fish, Desserts, Teas, Jams, and Preserves. I'll continue to prepare recipes from this book and post some on Grandpa's Home Cooking. 

Soupe aux poireaux et pommes de terre (Leek and Potato Soup):

 

1/2 cup unsalted butter

6 large leeks, white parts only, cut into 1/2 inch slices

1 teaspoon salt

4 large potatoes, sliced (with slices quartered)

fresh parsley, chopped for garnish

seasonings

Provides 4 servings

 Heat 1/4 cup of butter in a (heavy) pan and sauté the leeks. While they are cooking, heat 1 quart water with the salt to just below a boil. Add the water to the leeks, all at once. Cover the pan, reduce the heat and simmer for 45 minutes. Add the sliced (I quarter) potatoes, add seasonings, cover, and continue cooking the soup for 20 minutes. Add the rest of the butter before serving. Sprinkle parsley over the top of the soup. Delicious.

Now. A word about the potatoes. I researched this and learned from Kate's Global Kitchen that for making chowder and chunky soups one should select waxy low-starch varieties such as Superior, Kennebe, Red Bliss, and other white and red skinned potatoes. I selected red skin potatoes. Monet's recipe says to slice the potatoes. For ease of eating, I quartered the slices. The firm texture holds up even after a long simmer. 

For rustic soups that rely solely on the starch from the potatoes to thicken them, the best are high starch russets or medium-starch Yukon Golds.

Monet's recipe said nothing about seasonings. Adding salt and pepper is a given. However, I use a mix of seasoning which includes salt, pepper, and garlic powder. I have a glass canning jar which contains a mix of 1 cup salt, 1/4th cup pepper, and 1/4th cup garlic powder. I added a couple of pinches of this seasoning to this soup. (I warmed leftover soup for lunch the day after and it was really good.)

And there you have it. Why not have one of Claude Monet's artistic soups for super. I'll be making another of his other favorite soups soon.

Grandpa's Chili, Famous Since 1949

Everyone, it seems, has their own chili recipe. And many think their chili is the best! I’m not an exception. I came up with this chili recipe in 1949. After I got home from school, mother called me from her office and said, "Son, I'm tired, I don't suppose you'd like to make a pot of chili for the family dinner." I jumped at the chance. She knew I loved to cook and that I had watched her make chili many times. But I took this opportunity to make the chili the way I wanted and invented the following recipe. I'd be very surprised if anyone makes chili like I do. But you ought try it, you might really like it.

Ingredients:

• 28.5 ounce can of original Hunts Diced Tomatoes
• 15 ounce can Hunts Tomato Sauce
• 1 can of Campbell’s Tomato Soup (an 8-year old's addition and I still use it)
• 2 cans dark red kidney beans, drained and rinsed in a colander
• 2-3 large carrots, diced
• 4 stalks of celery, remove the strings and  slice
• Chopped leaves from one stalk of celery
• Large sweet onion, diced
• Water
• 1½ pounds of ground chuck
• Bunch green onions, diced
• Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce
• 1 teaspoon basil
• 1 teaspoon thyme
• Salt and fresh ground pepper
• A few shakes of Tobasco sauce, (or Cholula Sauce)

Mom used a little chili powder when she thought I wasn't looking and wouldn't notice.  A kid wouldn't use chili powder or hot sauce in 1949. Now I like to use Mexican Cholula sauce because it has a wonderful bright tomato taste.

This pot ought to provide 12 large servings.

Instructions:

Pour the diced tomatoes, 2-3 cans of water, tomato sauce, tomato soup, kidney beans, carrots, celery, sweet onion, onion, salt, and freshly ground pepper in a 4 qt or stock pot, and begin to heat the ingredients using a moderate setting (lower the setting if the soup starts boiling). Stir now and then.

Meanwhile, crumble and lightly brown meat in a skillet. Add salt and pepper to taste. As the meat begins to brown, add the chopped green onions, and about 5 healthy shakes of Worcestershire sauce. When the meat is browned, pour the contents of the skillet in a colander to drain off as much grease as possible. Then pour the meat mixture into the soup pot, add the spices and a couple of shots of Cholula sauce (if desired).

Finish heating until the chili is ready to be served.

I like to serve the chili with both soda crackers and club crackers and I always butter my crackers. I know. The Fat Police be on you if they catch you doing this! When I was a kid, I'd lather the butter on the cracker and then I'd spoon some of the soup solids on top and it it:-) You can't take the boy out of some men.

Now I want to tell you of something good that you can do. Make a big pot of this for folks living in an Independant Living Facility. Divide the contents of the pot into freezer containers and freeze the chili. When folks don't feel like going down to the dining room now and then, they can take a container out of their freezer, thaw it, heat it in their microwave and have a fine dinner. Provide thawing and heating instructions. 

You going to have a crowd for dinner. Make as much chili as you'll need. This is a fine meal for a crowd. They'll love being served this chili on a cold winter's night. Serve some Merlot with it, or ice cold milk if that's what your crowd might like. A glass of ice cold milk goes great with this chili.