For Father

I haven't seen my father in some incredible amount of time, perhaps even in excess of a year. So, when I was present with an opportunity to spend some time with him very near home (In my brother's house, actually) I was very excited about seeing him, and being able to show him the progress I'd made in my cooking skill. I decided to make some dishes that I thought he would be craving having not had them available to him in quite some time. Steak is thought to be a luxury meal in the states, no? So, that choice was natural, and I'd been wanting to make a green peppercorn port sauce for a while, so that was easy enough to decide on. And, the moment I spotted a recipe for this Roasted Leek Potato Soup, I knew I had to make it my own.



Of course, I had to add some bacon in with those shallots. No potato is complete without bacon. Mmm...bacon. I think I stuck to the recipe for the most part, besides. I forgot to bring my immersion blender and had to use this wacky little drink blender that Kevin had and do it in about five different batches. It wasn't incredibly difficult, but it was tedious.



This was incredible. It was everything I could have hoped for. The salt-denaturing worked its magic so well that we could cut our steaks with a butterknife (which was good, because Kevin didn't have any steak knives). I made a garlic, rosemary and bleu cheese butter to put on these, and then forgot about it. The port sauce could have been thicker, but that will have to wait for another day. The shallots and green peppercorns worked out wonderfully, especially with me just guessing at how much to use, as I lost the recipe some time ago.

For desert, I was going to serve the rose crackies, and I brought all the ingredients for them, with the exception of the rose petals...so, they had to wait. Luckily, there was a pecan pie in the car from a local Dutch Bakery (run by the local Amish!) that was wonderful, and I used a bit of the Lemongrass Whipped Cream to enhance it. It couldn't have been better.



Happy Campers!