Creamy Potato Leek Soup

Creamy Potato Leek Soup

Potato Leek Soup HeaderIf I’ve said it once (and I totally have), I’ve said it 1,390,423,825 times.I could live off of soup.

Every kind of soup. I’m not even biased, it doesn’t even have to be “soup”, stews and chili’s are equally amazing to me.

Ever since my Vitamix came into my life, I’ve been obsessed with making “creamy” (with no cream) blended soups that are chock-full of nutrients and as easy as literally throwing all the ingredients in a blender and…..blending. It couldn’t get easier. Creamy Potato Leek Soup 4This past week was Saint Patrick’s Day and every year it makes me think of my Irish family heritage. My grandma used to make a delicious potato leek soup and I decided to make a faux creamy version and make it thicker and denser but with the same nostalgic flavor.

Behold this amazingly delicious and a tiny bit spicy original Irish delicacy 😉

As you can see from the pictures you can switch your toppings up. One way is reserving some of the roasted veggies, another is the delicious sautéed mushrooms or you could do both! It’s all good because to be honest the real star is the soup itself. Creamy Potato Leek Soup 2It’s thick and stick to your ribs-y (a made up adjective but you guys feel me, right??) it’s creamy and smooth but yet dairy free (unless you want to use dairy milk).
Creamy Potato Leek Soup 1Creamy Potato Leek Soup RecipeCreamy Potato Leek Soup 3Creamy Potato Leek Soup 5Don’t forget about the ‘schrooms too. They’re good enough to eat alone!
Creamy Potato Leek Soup 6Creamy Potato Leek Soup 8Creamy Potato Leek Soup 7

There’s still a sweet spot in my heart for my grandmas version but this one is hard to beat. You haveeeeee to try it and come back to tell me if you liked it too! 🙂 Enjoy!

xoxo

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All Whisked Up! {Choripán Recipe}

 {Choripán}

Our fave (1)This week’s post is extra special!

Also a little longer than normal (bear with me)….let me explain!

Recently I became a member of a blogging group called Wisconsin Whisk. It’s a group of food bloggers in the great state of Wisconsin. The main goal is to connect bloggers in Wisconsin together with each other as well as with local producers, sponsors, advertisers to really nuture a community of support. As of right now, there are close to 40 blogs that are members! The majority are located around the Madison, Wisconsin area but there is certainly an impressive footprint of Wisconsin covered, from Eau Claire all the way down to Milwaukee and everywhere in between. Here is a list of members. Check them out! And if YOU are a food blog located in Wisconsin, consider joining!cropped-banny3_1A month or so ago, we had a first sort of ‘meet and greet’ event where some of us close to Madison got together to meet each other face to face and briefly cover what the goals of Whisk are and brainstorm ideas and discuss what members wanted to see Whisk help them accomplish.

One of the things we discussed was a sort of secret santa recipe swap if you will. The idea would be that if you wanted to participate you could put your name in a virtual bucket and you would be then be assigned another blog to go and research and find a recipe of theirs you wanted to try. You would make the recipe and document and photograph in your own style. Then those participating would unveil their “secret” recipes at the same date and time! We decided to call the event, All Whisked Up!

None of us know who is assigned our blog until posts are published (that’s today!).

My ‘assignment’ was to check out Kristin over at Everyday Celebrations.

Kristin describes herself as : “A former teacher turned wife, mom of 5, and author of Everyday Celebrations. She shares recipes and tips for celebrating life’s memorable moments and everyday celebrations. Some days celebrate a certain food, idea, or activity. Sometimes a day is set aside to remember or to increase awareness of a need. Each and every day should be celebrated by spending time with family and friends enjoying whatever time we are given”

Personally I absolutely love the positivity and gratitude that is practiced through finding the good in every day and having little celebrations all the time! Not to mention my admiration for a mom of 5 finding time to blog!

While looking through Kristin’s blog one of her posts and recipes really stood out to me. Kristin had a post highlighting when she made Choripan and I couldn’t help but try to make it myself.

What the hellllllz is choripan you ask? Ohhhh, sit tight, you’re gonna want to pay attention.

Super high level: Choripan is a type of sandwich that is incredibly popular in South America, most notably Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Guatemala, and a ton of others!

It’s name comes from a combination of it’s ingredients chorizo (chori) and bread (pan). It’s basically an fancy adult version of the american hot dog. Chorizo sausage grilled to perfection, split down the middle and served on crusty bread with chimichurri and pickled onions (that’s the most popular method).

Through my research I found that while most recipes you will see call for Chorizo, not all chorizo is the same. Normally when someone says Chorizo you think of mexican chorizo which has that classic red color needs to be removed from it’s casing and ends up as ground meat. But there are many different kinds of chorizo. Spanish chorizo even has many version all depending on the locale. But most notably, Brazilian and Argentinian Chorizo is made with pork sausage which is very closely related to italian sausage and has similar flavors with more heat and less fennel flavors.

I looked at every.single.type. of chorizo that was available at my grocery store and tried to pick the one that was like what’s described above. I decided to give two of them try for comparison. Both were actually very good but I would pick the Usingers brand over Klements. Probably just personal preference but I like the consistancy (less crumbly, more sturdy) and the taste (more robust) better than the other. Both were great and totally tasty though!
Our fave

flag_of_brazil_heart_sticker-rd0816af7c62d425787003e4c3b1597b1_v9w0n_8byvr_1024I have a special place in my heart for Brazil (Brasíl  ❤ ) from my travels there when I was in high school. And actually had choripan while I was there! This brought back memories for me and the chimichurri was like a walk down memory lane for my taste buds. This post and recipe was fun to make and even more fun and delicious to eat.

Kristin is keeping her recipe for her chimichurri on lock down 🙂 so we made our own version but stayed true to her vision. So without further adieu, here is our take on choripán!
20151004_164217444444 ALWAYSSUMMER (1)I pan fried my sausages
20151004_162423and made the chimichurri
20151004_163058and the pickled onions & tomatoes
20151004_163226it was such a beautiful spread I couldn’t help but snap more photos!
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20151004_162912Then you put it all together!

I slathered both sides of the bread with chimichurri and then placed the sausage on top, garnished with pickled onions and tomatoes and squished together.
20151004_16393722222And take a big bite
20151004_16432533333My favorite part was definitely the chimichurri. I actually used the leftovers a few days later on a baked chicken. Just stuffed some under the skin of the chicken and rubbed it down all over. It seriously tasted so good. You might will have some left over of this so experiment, have fun, and find another use!20151004_162630Whew! Done with pictures 🙂 This was really super delicious and Jake loved it, I loved it, so unique and flavorful. You should definitely give this recipe a try.

Also make sure to check out all the other blogs and member of Wisconsin Whisk! You can click on the little blue frog link down at the bottom to see all the other members who are participating in the recipe swap!

Have a wonderful weekend!!

xoxo

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To view all the other All Whisked Up recipes, click here:

 

*Here is the inspiration post from everydaycelebrations