Cozy Winter Lunch | Potato – Leek soup and Croques-Monsieur

I found this potato – leek soup on David Lebovitz’s blog. It was wonderful with the sandwich. This may be one of my favorite lunches.

 

Butter, leeks, home-made chicken stock (the recipe calls for water, but I figured a couple of cups of stock substituted for some of the water wouldn’t hurt), bay leaves and thyme, russet potatoes (had some sitting around), white pepper and chili powder.

 

Sweating the leeks in the butter.

 

Simmering until the potatoes are tender.

 

Buzzed with an immersion blender.

 

Gruyere (got it sliced into “sandwich slices” at the charcuterie counter), sourdough bread, honey-baked ham I had vacuum-sealed and frozen from Christmas.

 

Two layers of cheese and ham.

 

Microplaned a bit of cheese on top of the skim of butter.

 

Baked, then broiled a bit to brown the cheese. It’s wonderful that something so simple can be so good.

Scallop Gratin

I’ve been wanting to add more seafood to my diet (and use my cute, garage-sale dishes) so I had to try this when I saw Ina Garten make it on Barefoot Contessa:  Back to Basics.

Butter, garlic, shallots, lemon juice, parsley, prosciutto, Herbsaint (for the Pernod).

 

Topping before adding the olive oil and panko. My goodness, it smelled so good;  it was hard not to eat it by the spoonful.

 

On the show, Ina said you could use sea scallops and cut them in half.

 

I didn’t have any dry, white wine open; so I used this.

 

Scallops cut in half, nestled in the wine, ready for the topping.

 

All set for the oven.

It was very good. I’ll certainly be making this again.