Simple Potato Leek Soup with Parmesan & Bacon

After all of the holiday indulgence and richness, I'm in the mood for simple, clean and nourishing food.  Does anyone else feel the same?  While I love the festive bustling Christmas season, I always look forward to the calmness and quiet of January.  I love the idea of "hunkering down" and stocking up.  I've been stocking our pantry with all of my favorite essentials so I can make everything we love without leaving the house.

This Potato Leek Soup is the perfect warm, comforting soup for holiday recovery... especially with crumbled bacon and fresh parmesan on top. 
Potato Leek Soup

with Parmesan & Bacon

4 large Yukon Gold potatoes
2 large leeks
1/4 cup of olive oil
Sea Salt & Cracked Pepper
4 cups of chicken stock
1/2 cup of cream
1/4 cup of parmesan cheese
......
crumbled bacon
parmesan
olive oil
crusty bread

 

Peel and dice the potatoes, and chop the leeks.  Add them to a large pot with the olive oil, salt and pepper.  Cook on medium for 10-15 minutes until the soften.

Add chicken stock and continue to cook for 10 more minutes until potatoes are very soft.

 I got a new food processor for Christmas, so I was anxious to give it a whirl.

Puree mixture in batches until smooth.

Add puree back into the pot, add cream and parmesan.  Heat through.

Serve with crumbled bacon, a drizzle of olive oil, a generous sprinkling of parmesan cheese (that I also processed in the food processor - love the texture), and a big chunk of crusty bread.

Our Holiday Break in Pictures

I hope you all had a wonderful and festive Christmas.  December is an especially nutty month for us (and I'm sure all of you, too).  We have Mike's birthday on the 7th, Emma's on the 15th + all of the holiday events packed in + a last minute work trip to New York for me... not to mention all of the holiday orders for the store I worked on around the clock to do my best to get everything out on time.  It went by in a whirl, but we made a conscious effort to slow down this last week to really enjoy each other.

When I got back from New York at midnight on the 19th, I put myself on an official break from all but fun time with my family - it was fantastic.  I feel like I've been pulled 12 different directions for the last 4 months since the store has opened (I'm sure you all can relate!) and it has been such a treat to shut down that side of my brain for just a little while.  I hope you've all had the chance to do the same.

The first thing on the agenda for my "break" was to make teacher gifts for Emma's school.  So no less than 8 hours after arriving home, Emma and I were in the kitchen making a little holiday cheer in the form of white chocolate dipped pretzel rods. 

I love this project because they take 2 minutes to prep (literally, melting chocolate in the microwave for 2 minutes) and then you're ready to dip.  I gave Emma complete creative control, mixing sprinkles, dipping and re-dipping.  The more "creative" they are, the more festive they look. It was a fun, no-stress morning in the kitchen with holiday tunes playing and sprinkles every where.

We did a lot of giving this holiday season - and I'm so glad.  Some years, it seems that Christmas sneaks up on us and I feel like we haven't given our fair share.  But this year, we were extra generous with tips everywhere we went, I had a huge bundle of toys that Emma helped pick out for a local women's shelter and we did some volunteering.  It is never enough, but I'm glad that we made a real effort this year to share.

I always give our teachers some extra money, too.  They are such amazing, loving and caring people that give so generously to Emma all year long - and we've all been in a spot in our lives that sometimes, you just need a little extra money for a special present, or an unexpected bill.  Most of Emma's teachers are young moms themselves, and I know they appreciate having a little extra to splurge on their little ones... but we can't resist giving a homemade treat, too. 

The next day, we had our first snow day!  This is Emma discovering the snow that first morning.

She loved it much more than this photo attests.  I promise.

Here's a little glimpse of a cold smile as she's sliding sown the hill.

Our dinners have been quick, easy and comforting - like these seared steaks.  I have a new appreciation for quick and easy dinners and will be sharing a lot more this month... I'm thinking one pan, less dishes and less time.

I made a simple mushroom sauce (for me, Mike is not a mushroom fan... ugh) garlic, butter, thyme and red wine.

One of the most fun presents I gave this year was a loaf of Poilane bread - recommended by the Barefoot Contessa.  It is baked in Paris and then shipped over night. Isn't it gorgeous?

I had it sent to Mike's mom to arrive on Christmas Eve right before we all came over for dinner. 

Checking out her presents on Christmas Eve at Mimi's house.

This is Christmas morning at our house.  Santa's packages were wrapped just like they were on the Polar Express (movie & book) - Emma's official resource for Christmas this year.

Santa never forgets Mr. Darcy : )

Fast forward 20 minutes...  This princess dress was a gift from me, from the Eloise shop at the Plaza in New York.

Christmas isn't complete without a train set : )

Gramp Gramp's firetruck all lit up for Christmas Day!  He drove it in the town parade earlier this season.

The girls in their Christmas finery.

Of course, after we'd been dressed up each night in our fun, fancy festive clothes - the only family photo we remembered to take was our last family party in our jeans : )


I've been cooking up a storm for the last couple of days and have some new recipes to share later today and the rest of the week.  We're also planning a fancy schmancy dinner with some friends for New Years - you can follow along on instagram.

It feels good to be back to my cooking and blogging groove - which I'll be doing a lot more of this month.  I have some exciting news for the store (announced soon), that will help free up my hands and my mind to help me get back to writing and cooking more. 

I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and enjoyed relaxing and loving on your family.  

Kitchen Chronicles: Trimming out the Windows

Hope you all enjoyed the holidays (or still are) with your favorite people!

My little sister is in town (the one who moved into our Florida guest room this past July) so our family is cherishing every moment together before she heads back to the east coast on Sunday...

Amidst all the holiday hustle, my dad and I found some time to address an important issue—our plain jane trimless windows. I'll get to all of them eventually, but for now I wanted to focus on the rooms on my priority list—the kitchen and my studio:

This was high on my list because it makes such a huge impact for relatively low effort and cost. And now's the time to do it before the wood planks and backsplash go in.

If you can remember back in March, I tried this for the first time with our new master bedroom redo, and absolutely loved the results:

I kept the existing stool and apron (the two bottom pieces) and just added two vertical pieces and one horizontal to the top. Since it was ridiculously easy, I thought I'd step it up this time and make my own stool and apron and knock out four windows in one day.

I enlisted my dad's help (he's a former furniture maker) and we agreed it would be a fun daddy-daughter project (the first of many, yay for being back home!).

The hardest part about this process was planning. All four windows were different dimensions and had different needs. We spent almost two hours at Lowe's trying to figure out exactly what to get and ensuring we wouldn't have to make a second trip.

For the design, I decided to keep it clean and simple. Straight cuts, no miters, no crown or fancy bevels. All of the door and window trim on the outside of our house is the same basis Craftsman style I used in our old bedroom:

So I thought consistency would be nice to tie everything together.

I chose cost-effective whitewood boards in various lengths and widths for each window, in 3/4" thickness. The total came to somewhere in the ballpark of $120 just for the wood—a bargain for the impact.

After gathering our wood, we got to work.

Step 1: removing the old window sills. Only two windows had them.

Next it was time to measure for our new sills. Each end needed to form an L shape on the ends so it would extend past the window.

Once the lines were drawn, we used a jigsaw to cut it out. It doesn't matter if the line isn't perfect since it will be covered with caulk and painted.

Ta-da...

After cutting, I realized that I should have doubled the thickness of the little piece that sticks out past the window...

Because I forgot about the wood going above and below it—I wanted it to stick out 1" past the other wood, not the window. Oops.

My dad suggested sliding it forward and cutting a small piece of wood to attach to it. Luckily he had a table saw to do just that.

We dabbed on some wood glue, shot a few nails through, and it was all fixed.

There was another obstacle—our wood wasn't deep enough. The largest planks they had at Lowe's were around 11.5" wide, but our sill was 13".

My dad fixed that by stripping down a piece of wood to the size of the gap and attaching it to the back.

To make it extra secure, he drilled pilot holes into the strip first...

Then screwed the two pieces together.

To make sure everything was seamless, he smoothed it down with a belt sander:

Perfect!

Onto installation. We installed the sills first, using plenty of liquid nails to level everything out (none of our existing sills were very straight).

This part goes really fast. Gotta love pneumatic nail guns.

After the sill came the side pieces (the order really doesn't matter). 

Notice my new sconce light boxes? That's for another post...

Then the bottom piece goes in...

And finally, the top. 

One down, three to go!

Next up is the garden window in the kitchen...

Same exact method. Sill, sides, bottom, top.

It's really as easy as it looks.

The window over the future sink...

And finally, the dining area window. The bottom piece was a little bowed (common with this wood) so we clamped it down before nailing it to the wall.

All done!

The next day, I came back to fill all of the nail holes and deal with one more problem—the textured walls.

Some areas were worse than others, but I wanted a nice smooth look so it's not obvious that the insides of the window are drywall and not wood.

Doug the handyman was there and let me borrow his drywall mud and go crazy. I figured I'd put a coat or two up and make the seams less obvious (most people would use caulk, but I wanted to skim coat the drywall to hide the texture so I killed two birds with one stone). 

The kitchen drywall texture was the worst. The wall was also nowhere near straight, so I had to put a few coats on this one to try and even it all out.

This step is not necessary (especially if you have smoother walls) but I'm really trying to pay attention to detail with this house. I don't want to have to go back and redo anything later on.

I also added a few light coats over some of the more visible knots. Not sure how drywall mud will work out but I figured it couldn't hurt.

And that's where we're at now! I plan to sand and caulk everything on Sunday so it's ready for paint. I'm choosing my paint color carefully this time—after we make an Ikea trip (hopefully next weekend) and get our pantry and bench seating, I want to color match the whites so the room looks cohesive.

In other news, I've been keeping my eye out for home decor and seriously scored last week. Check out what I got for $24!

My treasures include two vintage glass window panes and small doors, an antique sled and paddle, pretty white dishes, antlers, two quilts, wood trays, a stool, 4 suitcases, a dremel kit, kitchen jars and canisters, and a large collection of glass insulators and more. Most of it was actually free from an abandoned garage my parents inherited from their tenants, and the rest was picked up at a local flea market. I can't wait to start decorating!

But first we must get through the next few weeks of hard work. Brad has been at the house every day working on the home theater room and is anxious to share his progress, so that will be coming in the next post!