Boursin Potato Soup

Boursin Potato Soup

Cook's notes:

This recipe is a new twist on the comfort food potato soup. The garlic and herb boursin cheese gives the soup a lot of flavor and adds to the creamy texture. There are other products to use besides Boursin just make sure it is one with garlic and herbs. Diced crisp bacon could be used as a garnish. An important step is to sweat onions, celery, carrots and garlic. Sweating allows the maximum release of flavors during the soup preparation.
When soup is reheated the next day may have to add more liquid because the potatoes absorb the liquid. I used equal parts of water and chicken broth.
Recipe adapted from Cuisine At Home October 2013
Serves 4
Ingredients:

• 1 cup diced sweet onions
• 3/4 cup diced celery 
• 3/4 cup diced carrots
• 1 TB. minced fresh garlic 
• 5 cups chicken broth (low sodium)
• 1 cup water
• 6-7 cups of diced potatoes like Yukon
• 1 pkg. Garlic and Fine herbs Boursin cheese (5.3 oz.) crumbled
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1/4 cup minced fresh chives

Directions:

• In 1-2 TB. olive oil sweat onion, celery, carrots and garlic till softened about 5 minutes
• Add broth, water and potatoes and bring to boil
• Reduce heat to medium and simmer till potatoes are fork tender 20 minutes
• Add mixture to Cuisinart and pulse till partially pureed ( a handheld blender works  too)
• Pour soup mixture back into soup pot and on low heat stir in cheese 
• Simmer soup about 25 minutes
• Garnish with bacon and chives

 

A Cookbook Conspiracy is Kate Carlisle's newest book in the Bibliophile Mystery Series. 

Brooklyn is quite a foodie and having a sister who graduated from the prestigious Cordon Bleu school in Paris is fantastic as she isn't much of a cook herself.

One of Savannah's classmates, Baxter Cromwell, is opening a new restaurant in San Francisco and he has invited the old gang from Paris to participate in the Grand Opening. Savannah asks Brooklyn to restore an old cookbook that Baxter had given her years ago so she can give it back to him as a gift. Brooklyn realizes the book must be at least 200 hundred years old and it has some strange notes in the margins. This is a book that belongs in a museum but Savannah is determined to give it back to Baxter.

Derek and Brooklyn attend the grand opening and the food is delicious, each and every course. It was a wonderful evening until shortly after the restaurant closes and all the guests have gone. It is then Baxter is found dead, the cookbook is missing, and Savannah is found next to the body with the murder weapon in her hand.

This partial book review caught my interest. I thought a good mystery focused around food and a rare cookbook sounded like a great reading recipe to me. I will keep you posted. So far its written in an upbeat (fun) breezy style that is fast paced.