Diet? I dunno...

“Beautiful Soup, so rich and green, Waiting in a hot tureen! Who for such dainties would not stoop? Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!" - Mock Turtle, Alice in Wonderland
So Sarah and I are both thinking about losing weight, even if we're not doing much about it at this point. Actually, last week I skipped supper for a few nights and I lost eight pounds. I think that was more a fluke of time-of-weighing and such than real weight loss, but anyway, it used to say 216 and now it says 208, so it can't be all bad.


But part of our plan for diet coming up is to eat more soup.


Sarah is reading a book called "French Women Don't Get Fat" which sez, and I quote:


"The French, who eat soup up to five times a week, eat better and less than Americans. The evening soup eater tends to consume less fat and less food overall, feeling satiated through the night."


By the way, I bought this innovative, miraculous, Swiss-designed vegetable peeler at a street fair from its inventor or something, and this was the first dish we tried it with. It totally sucked. We threw it away and stuck with our OXO.

Sarah's Recipe:
This is a Bittman recipe


Olive oil--1 or 2 tbls

2 leeks

3 medium potatoes (we used five because they were small and going down hill fast)

4 cups chicken stock (water or vegetable broth would also be fine).
1/2 cup cream, milk, 1/2 and 1/2

Salt and pepper to taste.


Cut and peel the potatoes into small cubes. Wash the leeks very well. The best way to do this is to cut them off at the pale green part and then split them lengthwise. Hold them under running water and separate the layers to wash the sand out. Chop.
Saute the leeks and potatoes in olive oil for five minutes, then cover with broth and cook until vegetables are very tender, about twenty minutes.

After that, you can put a little bit at a time into the blender. Don't freak out if it gets really starchy. It'll thin out when it gets added back to the broth. You can also use a stick blender, but I like the real blender better.
Finally, add 1/2 cup cream, or milk, or 1/2 and 1/2 if you feel like it. If not, it'll be fine just the way it is. Don't let your soup come up to a boil after you've added the milk.