

Happy Ostara, first day of Spring, and Ironically-Snowy-Day-in-YYC! :p Click here to skip the ramble and go straight to this Cream of Leek recipe

Last week, it was more spring-like. Warm, sunny and lightly breezy. Today, on the first day of spring: overcast, snowy, with freezing wind. Feeling a little trapped in my own home (because let’s be real, this west coast girl is NOT going out there), I decided to keep busy and do some pantry and fridge cleaning. That’s when I discovered some leeks I had hiding in the back of the fridge. I had meant to try a certain recipe with them when I first bought them, but somehow never collected the rest of the ingredients that I needed. They were looking kind of sad so I cleaned and chopped them up, still not knowing what to make out of them.

It was more than an hour later, after I finished organizing my pantry, that I settled on making a quick and easy creamy leek soup. There really isn’t any cream or cream-replacer in this recipe. The cream in this soup is simply a slurry of flour and water added to a rich veggie broth.

I have to credit my very first roommate for this “cream” technique. She taught me that adding flour to water and cooking it created a cream-like liquid. My mind was blown. Before I learned this, the only cream of such-and-such soups I had was out of a can. You know, the white and red label. I thought the cream had to be real cow cream. At the time, I had no problem with that but my attempts at cream soups from scratch were always thin and way too milky tasting.

But first thing’s first: cooking down those leeks!

These leeks were cooked down on medium heat for about 10 minutes. That’s just enough time for them to soften, break down and sweeten up.