Leak and Potato Soup

Tonights meal was Leek and Potato soup, fantastic for the winter, I do love it :)
Lots of people cut off the green parts of a leek and just use the white, but what a waste.. I like my soup looking a bit green :)

but if you don't, then just use the white part.

 

Ingredients for this Recipe
(This is for 1 person, 2 at a stretch )

1/2 a Leek (Roughly 150g)
2 small ish potatoes (Roughly 250g)
1 Pint Chicken Stock ( I currently use the cheap Tesco ones to save my pennies, substitute with Vegetable Stock if you don't eat Chickens heh)
Salt and Pepper
a Knob of butter (roughly 20g)
Milk - I used about 100ml, but you can adjust this to how much you like, or use cream instead, which is yummy :)

Instructions

You'll need a saucepan with a lid, and also either a hand blender or food processor.  you may be able to do this with a potato masher, but you'll have a few lumps left in it, it'll still taste nice though :)

Slice your Leeks into roughly 1/2cm wide rings 
 
put the saucepan on a high heat(not the highest) and add the knob of butter to the pan and let it melt
 
When the butter has melted and started sizzling, add in the leaks, now cover the pan with a lid and let it "sweat" whilst your chopping potatoes
 
Dice the potatoes into 1cm squares or smaller, it doesn't matter too much how tidy this is cause your going to process em, if you can be bothered, cut them smaller they will cook down faster.
I also leave the skins on because it makes the soup have a more "earthy" flavour which I quite like, but you might not like this and it's not "traditional" so you might want to remove the skins. I'm also too lazy for that, so i'll use the excuse that it's for fibre :)
 
add the pint of stock and the diced potatoes to the pan, now reduce the heat slightly and simmer with the lid on for about 30 minutes.
after 30 minutes it should look like this photo.
 
Now it's time to take the blender to it, keep blending it till it's all nice and smooth, once it's looking good it's time to add salt and pepper (a dash of each to taste), and add in the milk/cream of which I use about 100ml but you'll have to play with this to find how you like it.

and your done :) serve up into a dish and enjoy.