Another Recipe: Spinach Vichyssoise

I don’t post recipes here very often. That is simply because most of the things I make involve spinach.

I like dark greens. I find them full of flavour and they are iron-rich, but I use most of my imagination for writing and don’t have much left for cooking. As a result, I alway think of broccoli and spinach when I need the iron that is absorbed in the most stomach-friendly way from these vegetables. Kale, collards, other leafy things are also good if you know what to do with them. The key to feeding new mothers, especially in the first six weeks postpartum, is iron-rich and stomach-friendly.

The problem is that broccoli gives my breastfed baby the most violent gas.

So, spinach again, then.
I adapted this recipe for Spinach Vichyssoise from the cookbook Vegetarian Planet by Didi Emmons (the graphic links to more info on Didi’s book), whom I rely on to give my cooking the imagination I can’t spare.

I’ve got the system for making this soup down to a science so I can do the labour-intenseive part in about 10 minutes…about the length of time my baby will happily amuse herself for. Then you just have to check on the simmer every few minutes.

- Sautée the white part of one leek, chopped, in a soup pot with about 4 tablespoons (90g) of butter.

- Peel and slice 4 large potatoes or 6 smaller ones. The smaller you cut the potatoes, the faster they’ll cook.

- Add the potatoes to the pot and mix them with the leeks and butter.

- Add salt and pepper to suit your taste and stir a little more.

- Add enough water to cover the potatoes and leek and put the lid on the pot. Start to bring the potatoes to a boil.

- Add about a pound (just under 500g) of frozen spinach to the pot. If the spinach you use is in one solid chunk, add it when you add the water. If it’s frozen in small bars, you can wait until the potatoes and leek come to a boil.

- Simmer until the potatoes are soft and reduce the heat even further.

-Stir in 2 to 2.5 cups (just under 1/2 liter) of skim milk, or until the texture is appropriately soupy.

I usually blend the soup to a thick sauce-like thickness. It makes for a nice texture if you want to serve the soup cold on a hot day. The other advantage of blending is, once the baby is old enough, you can feed it to him or her too. I started giving it to my son when he was 8 or 9 months old and he still enjoys it.