Potages d'hiver

It's a bit late to talk about winter soups but we have more than another month before spring arrives. The picture shows a bowl of potage d'hiver I cooked up on our snow day last week. The idea of potage is to throw whatever you might have on hand in your fridge, sauté it, add water and some herbs as you like, and throw it in the blender. Perhaps it is a modernized version of the concoction referenced in the nursery rhyme "peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old." In those days, they threw everything in the pot and ate from the pot, threw more stuff in the pot, and ate some more....

Potage d'hiver is apparently now a French soup, and I love to make it in winter. Usually I take onions, leeks, carrots, celery, turnips, a small red potato or two, and a parsnip. In this case, I couldn't find any turnips, so I used what I had on hand:  onions, leeks, celery, and carrots sautéed in the pot with olive oil, then plain frozen peas, cauliflower, and broccoli added with water, and some herbes de provence and a lot of freshly ground pepper. Let that simmer for an hour or more, and then blend it up. It's a good stick-to-your-ribs lunch. I usually eat it plain, but any kind of garnish would be fine: cheese or garlic croutons, shredded cheese,  a dollop of yogurt or sour cream.

Another very simple potage d'hiver is this cauliflower soup:

Slice an onion and sauté in 2 TB of olive oil and 2 TB of melted butter for 15 minutes on low heat til soft, but not darkened. Add a head of cauliflower cut up into pieces the size of the florets and 1 cup of water. Put the lid on the pot and simmer over medium low for another 10 or 15 minutes, then add another 4 cups of water. Bring to a boil. Season with salt and pepper and keep on heat til the cauliflower is completely soft. Cool a bit and then blend up. The result is a creamy and delicious soup, but without the cream. Garnish with shredded parmesan or croutons, or both if you are having guests and serve a cup of this soup as a first course.

I like to make my own soups since they tend to taste far better than canned and lack the overdose of sodium and sugar canned soups tend to have.