Potato and Leek Soup

So my appetite is easily influenced by whatever happens to be on TV (I guess commercials work well on me) and after rewatching Ratatouille the other night I was really curious about the big deal soup Remy makes at the beginning. Forget that I've never had potato and leek soup before and have no idea how it tastes, Pixar makes it look yummy. So, here's my attempt at some potato and leek soup, based off the recipe by Ratatouille consultant Michael Warch.

Ingredients:
2 leeks
2 russet potatoes
2 tbsp butter
several springs of thyme, to taste really
5 cups chicken (or veggie) broth
1/2 cup cream (I just used half and half)

First remove the root and top of the leeks, then cut each stalk in half, and slice those halves into small, maybe quarter inch slices, and then cube the potatoes. Wash the leeks really well to remove all the icky sand, I put mine in a strainer and them submerged that into a bowl of water.

Next, melt the butter in your pot and sautee the leeks for 10 minutes. Add potatoes, then broth. According to the Ratatouille recipe, prepare a bouquet de garni, pretty much just thyme wrapped in some leek leaves and tied with kitchen twine, and toss that in the pot too, like so.



The original called for parsley and bay leaf as well, but I didn't have any and felt that thyme by itself was already pretty strong. Simmer that for 20 minutes.

Now the recipe I found called for blended soup, but I kind of prefer non blended, so I made this into two batches; blended for Mooncake



Who did not feel like waiting two seconds for a spoon, and normal for me. For the blended soup, separate out half the soup and blend until smooth, it only takes a few seconds. Pour into a separate pot, add all the cream if you're doing this to all your soup or just 1/4 if for some reason you also want two soups, and then 1/4 into your other pot. Simmer for another 2 minutes, and you're done.

The finished product of the blended soup, which actually does look much fancier:




And the normal one:



And also the yummy tritip Lamson made, and iono what's in it but that sauce is made from the soup, haha.