Leek Potato Soup (Paleo)

Have I mentioned how much I LOVE sweet potato fries? Well, I do. So when I found a paleo "potato soup" recipe that used sweet potatoes, I HAD to try it!

Now, I already have a potato soup recipe. And it is HEAVENLY. Honestly, it is THE BEST potato soup I have EVER had in my ENTIRE (almost 31) year life. And I only discovered it last month. But it was "life changing". In the sense I swore I'd never eat another potato soup again. 

Then I started trying out paleo meals and discovered my addiction to sweet potato fries (something I HAD tried in the past, but fast food is NOTHING compared to REAL food). Then you add my discovery of a paleo potato soup made with sweet potato and well I HAD to try that one too; knowing FULL well it could "never compare to MY potato soup".

Leek Potato Soup

What you Need:
(first made 19 Feb 13)

A Pack of Bacon (you MAY or MAY NOT use it all :)
2 Large Sweet Potato
3-4 Medium Carrots
4-5 Stalks of Celery
2 Leeks
1 Small Onion
2 Cloves of Garlic
32 fl oz Chicken Broth (or more)
1 can Coconut Milk
Salt
Pepper
Cayenne Pepper
Green Onion
Cheese

Ingredients (minus the cheese)

Firstly, take your bacon and cook it up. Set cooked bacon aside and drain most of the fat. [I was able to take a short cut because I cooked a pack of bacon for breakfast, so I was able to skip this step.] You could also cook your bacon in the oven if you'd like to avoid the splatter on the stove top. (This is my preferred method of cooking bacon and how I cooked my bacon this morning; it is the BEST way for that perfect, melt-in-your-mouth crispy bacon. The way bacon SHOULD be.]

While your bacon is cooking (or BEFORE you start cooking/baking your bacon), chop up your vegetables: sweet potato, carrots, celery, leeks, onion, and garlic. You want equal amounts of carrots, celery and leeks.

Need some more celery.

I did not have enough celery, so I added two extra stalks (making 5 total to my 4 medium carrots). I also chopped up my sweet potatoes thin (as you can see). The thinner the bits of potato, the faster the soup cooks and the sooner you can start eating!

You want the amount of sweet potato to be double that of your carrots/celery/leeks.

Two sweet potatoes were MORE than enough.

I am a little weird about potato soup, so I made sure to chop up my carrots, celery, leeks, onion and garlic nice and fine. I added my garlic to the leek pile as I'd be putting those into the pot at the same time. 

Vegetables all chopped and ready to go.

Once your vegetables are all chopped, you are ready to make your soup! BUT, before you start, make sure you put your "extra" vegetable pieces into a plastic bag. You can use them to make stock and won't have to pick some up for your next recipe calling for stock! You know if you want to get the crock pot out and all that jazz.

Gonna make some vegetable stock!

Now that that is out of the way, place some bacon fat (or whichever fat you'd like to use, but bacon is SOOOOO good; plus you're going to put bacon on top so why not just use bacon fat?) in the bottom of your pot. When it's melted and beginning to get hot, put in your onions. You could add your carrots and celery in as well, but I like to cook my onions a bit before adding the colorful carrots and celery.

My big ole pot makes the amount of vegetables look so small!

Cook your onion, celery, and carrots for 2-5 minutes. Remember even if you THINK you haven't cooked them long enough to soften, you still have quite a length of cooking time remaining. AND you are going to puree all this at the end regardless of how soft your vegetables are (or aren't). Then add your garlic and leeks. Cook for another 2-4 minutes; make sure you continually stir to ensure the garlic doesn't burn. After 30 seconds or so you should be able to smell the garlic. At this point I add some salt and pepper and toss in the potatoes (again, you still have some cooking time remaining, so the leeks will get soft.. you REALLY don't want burnt garlic in your soup). Stir to combine and cook 5-7 minutes. Add your stock. (I used chicken.)

(You can also add your potatoes and stock at the same time.)

Chicken stock added.

Unfortunately, you can see my 32 fl oz was NOT enough to cover all my vegetables. If you can SEE the chicken stock, then just ignore the next step because that means you like your soup extra thick. If you like yours a little less thick, add some water. JUST enough to cover your vegetables. 

(Keep in mind when deciding what consistency of soup you want, that you are NOT adding any flour (which thickens the soup). If I had been thinking about the entire can of coconut milk I had still to add, I would NOT have added any more liquid to my soup. My soup still came out spectacular, but for a more potato soup consistency you may not want to add the water. Isn't hind sight fun?)

Bring this to a boil and cook for 10 minutes, or until your potatoes are fork soft. If you aren't sure about your carrots and celery, check them too! (This step, because I had my burner down to medium heat, took FOREVER. I ended up turning it up to high just so the soup would heat up and the potatoes would cook!)

Turn off your burner and add your can of coconut milk. 

Then, if you are AWESOME and have an immersion blender, use your immersion blender to puree your soup. If you DON'T have an immersion blender, don't worry. Neither do I.

We can use the blender to begin the puree process for this soup.

A word of caution though: Please don't be like me and have soup fly up out of your blender because the heat caused a reverse suction and as soon as you turn your blender on, it blows potato soup all over you.

Thank you.

My blender blew up. Or my potato soup blew up. One of the two.

I need AND want an immersion blender. However, I have mastered the art of potato soup blending; although (obviously) there was a bit of a mishap this go around. I use a soup spoon and deliver it to the blender, put it on pulse and blend until creamy looking. Then I transfer the ENTIRE blender back into the pot. Repeat this a few times until the OBVIOUS non-pureed pieces are harder to find. Then I take a slotted spoon and fish for large pieces; I'm REALLY dedicated to a smooth consistency in my potato soup. 

Once you have finished, it is TIME TO EAT! 

Serve yourself some soup. Add on some grated cheese (I'm a dairy (and sugar, and and and) kind of paleo girl :), some chopped bacon, and green onion. (You can prep all these while the soup is cooking.)

Then scarf it down. After you've finished scarfing it down, remember your forgot about the "life changing" ingredient: cayenne pepper.

Serve the kidlets a bowl each (and listen to them complain about not wanting soup, minus the baby who is whining because he wants to eat already and ends up eating three servings) and serve yourself another bowl. Add on the cheese. Add on the bacon. Sprinkle on some green onion (which personally you can skip on this soup; it is not THAT necessary, but it sure is pretty). And EVER so carefully, sprinkle on some cayenne pepper. (Unless you REALLY like hot.)

Absolute. Perfection.

Scarf down your second bowl and absolutely ENJOY it because despite the fact you used sweet potatoes instead of red, the cayenne covers perfectly the sweet flavor and brings you back to the most perfect potato soup recipe you've EVER had. Oh wait, that's me. DON'T WORRY, this soup is good too! The cayenne just adds something special that helps cut the sweetness of the sweet potatoes and coconut milk I tasted in my first serving.

Enjoy a third bowl if you must (I didn't have room to do so) and then contemplate the dishes.

Then remember that during the LONG wait period for your potatoes to soften, you did most of your dishes. And your soup can store in the pot overnight because you are going to have it for dinner again tomorrow and you can clean the pot out then. So dishes are a BREEZE! But PLAN ahead! :)