Recipe of the Month: Rosemary Potato Soup

At some point in the past couple of weeks, I was leafing through a magazine whose name I can't remember and spotted a recipe for potato soup with rosemary. I remarked to Brian that this sounded good, but I didn't bookmark the recipe, and I'd forgotten all about it until Monday night, when he called me to the dinner table and I walked in to find the kitchen redolent with rosemary. Apparently, the idea had stuck in his mind, and rather than go hunt up the recipe, he'd simply made up one of his own.

Not having any idea what was in the original recipe, he just worked with what we had. Our leeks in the garden are ready for harvest, though smallish, so he used two of those. And we happened to have some leftover silken tofu in the fridge that needed using up, so he pureed that and used it to thicken the soup. He also tossed in some garlic, a carrot, a bay leaf, five potatoes, salt, and a generous portion of fresh rosemary harvested from our herb garden. And for stock, he used our favorite vegetable soup base from Penzeys Spices.

Considering what a simple assortment of ingredients this was, the result was amazingly hearty and flavorful. Thick, creamy, savory, fragrant with garlic and rosemary, and full of mouth-filling chunks of potato and carrot. And it's vegan, too.

Now, technically, it was still September when he prepared this dish. But it was so tasty, I just couldn't resist the urge to share it with you as my Recipe of the Month for October. The only change I've made to it is to cut the salt; the version he made Monday used 1 1/2 teaspoons, which we both agreed was a little too much. But if your soup stock has less salt in it than Penzeys, you might want to use the full amount.

ROSEMARY POTATO SOUP

Heat in pan:

• 1 Tbsp olive oil

Sauté in the pan for about 5 minutes:

• 2 small leeks, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
  

Transfer to stock pot along with:

• 6 c. veggie stock
• About 5 russet potatoes, cut into chunks
• 1 carrot, chopped
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 Tbsp. fresh rosemary, snipped into fragments

Cook 1/2 hour, then add:

• 4 oz. silken tofu, pureed
• 2 Tbsp. cornstarch dissolved in water
• 1 tsp. salt (or to taste)

Heat through and serve.

For us, this recipe was not only tasty and satisfying, but also remarkably cheap. Since the leeks and rosemary came out of our own garden, they were more or less free, and the other ingredients, by my calculations, cost about $2.90. The pot of soup provided five servings in total (two for dinner, three for lunch), so that works out to less than 60 cents per serving.

However, if you aren't lucky enough to have a garden, leeks and fresh rosemary could be a bit pricey to buy at the store. I think you could probably substitute a chopped onion for the leeks without really harming the flavor of the soup, though you might have to sauté it a bit longer before it softens. And technically, I guess, you could use dried rosemary instead of fresh, but I honestly think it wouldn't be the same. Much better to cadge some fresh rosemary off a friend who has a garden, or buy yourself a plant and find a sunny window to grow it in.