The potato leek part is my older daughter’s favorite soup, and we make that quite often, and she prefers it without any milk or cream. Both kids love the novelty of having the green star in the middle, and they actually eat the spinach (swirling it with the soup to dilute the taste). I think the spinach purée alone makes a pretty tasty dairy-free “creamed spinach” side dish, but since I am the only one in the family who likes creamed spinach, I don’t make it unless I am making the soup.
If you don’t have a kosher for Passover cookie cutter, use a cup.
Potato Leek Soup
(makes 10 servings)
Ingredients
3 leeks
5 tbsp olive oil
2 pounds white potatoes, chopped
2 qts water
Salt and pepper to taste
½ cup cream or milk (optional)
Cooking equipment
Cutting knife
Colander
Spatula
Measuring cup
Measuring spoon
Large pot
Cookie cutter or small plastic cup with the bottom cut off
Blender (stick blender works nicely)
To make the plain potato leek soup:
1. Discard tough part of green tops of leeks, then wash bottoms thoroughly
2. Cut leeks into thin slices and rinse in colander.
3. Cook in olive oil until leeks are soft – about 5 minutes.
4. Add potatoes and water and bring to a boil.
5. Lower heat and simmer for 30 minutes or until potatoes are soft.
6. Puree with a blender.
Add salt and pepper to taste. For a creamier variation, add ½ cup of cream or milk
Spinach Purée
1. Blanch 1 lb of baby spinach (Put in small colander and submerge briefly into boiling water until barely cooked. Then transfer to bowl of ice water.)
2. Drain spinach.
3. Puree with ¼ of batch of potato leek soup.
Assemble final soup by placing the cookie cutter in the bottom of a soup bowl. Spoon spinach puree into the cookie cutter to desired depth. Pour potato leek soup around cookie cutter to the same depth. Then remove cookie cutter and repeat in another bowl.
This article on peanut allergies inspired a lot of discussion on Facebook. Why are there so many peanut allergies among Americans and Brits and so few among native-born Israelis? The article only answers why so few among native-born Israelis (early exposure to peanuts). But the explosion of allergies elsewhere in the past ten years is still unanswered.
You can see a full color version of this mosaic wall at Raritan Valley Community College in this post. To put this in sepia, I copied the original photo to a new layer in Photoshop, desaturated the photo, added yellow and red to get sepia, and then set the opacity of the sepia layer to 90% so just a wee bit of color would show through. I wanted to use the sepia effect to emphasize the textures of the mosaic.
cardinal in watercolor on paper
Yesterday, when it was warmer and almost spring-like, I saw many birds on my block, including a hawk flying low. Today there are big, white fluffy flakes coming day outside my window. By necessity (I need to pick my kids soon, early dismissal due to the weather), this will be a short post. Note the bill and the plume of the head (thanks, Michelle and Lorri).
On a related note, it is a custom to feed the birds the week of Parshat B’Shalach. Of course, the birds might want to be fed other weeks as well. Cardinals like sunflower seeds.
This was my favorite dance at my daughter’s ballet recital (not counting the ballet, tap and jazz dances she performed, of course). It seemed like a fitting ballet for this time of year; on Sunday Jews around the world celebrate the holiday of Purim, and dressing up in costume is part of the tradition.
My Mother Should Have Posted This Last Week
My daughter and her dancer friends want you to know that her mom should have told you last week to submit links for the JPIX Blog Carnival that will appear tomorrow on Pesky Settler’s blog. JPIX is the blog carnival for Jewish Photo Bloggers (about Jewish topics, but one can stretch this to nature, everyday living and food photos); everyone is welcome to enjoy the show.
Purim is a holiday in which we read the Book of Esther (twice, once at night, once during the day), give charity to the poor, share food baskets with friends, wear costumes (at least many of the kids do and a few brave adults) and eat a feast in the afternoon. My daughter made this drawing yesterday to put on oatmeal containers that will be given to her friends (see last year’s decorated containers).
Can you name any of the characters in her drawing? Here is the Book of Esther.
For more posts with a little or a lot of red, visit Ruby Tuesday:
Bow of Dancer Waiting Her Turn to Go on Stage
My daughter’s dance rehearsal and show was last week. Lots of girls from ages 3 to teenagers performed ballet, tap and jazz. I love the costumes – they make the performances all the more fun. These girls, a group younger than my daughter, had polka dot outfits.
If you have a camera, why would you want to draw or paint a bird? With a camera you can capture all the details you need. Why learn how to draw?
When you are drawing, you concentrate on every detail of what you are looking at – the colors, the texture, the shapes, the depth, the values. And when I drew the bird (it’s going to be a cardinal – wait until I apply the paint), I learned about how the head, body, tail and feet are shaped. And I had to think about how to present the textures of the feathers.
Look forward to showing you the finished painting. Oh, and another reason to draw is your daughter (or son) might then take out her own piece of paper and draw her own bird. I just might show you the bird that my daughter drew as well.
My daughter did this painting about two weeks ago, after our winter vacation. What do you see?
Note: When I photographed it, the painting was curled; my daughter didn’t paint it with the curl at the top. Maybe I could have taped it down before photographing it. Next time.
