How are you precooking the potatoes?

IMPO, it's OK to once in awhile discard potato skins. I steam or boil whole, unpeeled potatoes to use in a dish, and cover them in cool water once they're done, then pull off the peels, once cool enough to handle. Only the skin comes off, no flesh, so there's minimal waste.

I compost all our vegetable waste.

Gold non-Yukon potatoes are similar, just not brand name. I wouldn't use them for a potato-y flavor and texture. They're lovely, and versitile, but waxier and have a different flavor. Russets would be a good, safe choice. If you want to use the skins, you're better off peeling. Without some flesh on them, there's really nothing to the skin, unless you can find a thick skinned type.

I agree with Russets being a good choice. Yukon Golds are a combination of wax/starch and will work nicely with maybe a little less thickening. I would peel them before cooking.

Thanks, carolb and plllog.

I will cook the potatoes as carolb suggested — but whole? not even cut in half? I will then remove the skins and toss them.

I think our potato supply might be low and I think I need more leeks (I think DH only got about six. too bad everthing but the white section has to be discarded. Compost.

I wonder if when growing leeks, gardeners could bank (?word) them as one does when growing celery or white asparagus. Would that give more of the usable white part?

So, there’s a good reason why chefs and cook usually go for the classic rendition. It is so delicious and beautiful. I will let you know how it turns out. If I shop for more leeks, I might pick up some russet potatoes.

I saw this Anthony Bourdain recipe on You-Tube. I may have to swap out a good bit of that rich cream for milk or more chicken broth.

Any one also making some cold soups? I think I may make a Cold Artichoke soup after the Vichysoisse.

(I will finely chop the chives.)

Aside — The most delicious scalloped potato dish I ever ate was years ago. My garden got more sun, I had more energy, and the summer was not as hot.

On a whim, I decided to plant some sprouted Maine or Kennebec potatoes. In the autumn I harvested them in set them in a cool airy place to dry for a day or so.

Then I made a traditional dish of scalloped potatoes. They were so delicious.

“I think I may make a Cold Artichoke soup after the Vichysoisse.”

Sounds really good! One of the best chilled soups I’ve ever had was artichoke years ago at a restaurant in West Hollywood. I still think about it now and then.

Not chilled, but one of the most memorable foods I have ever eaten was Duarte’s Artichoke Soup in Pescadero CA https://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Duartes-Cream-Artichoke/

Article about Duarte’s:

https://www.saveur.com/article/Travels/Saveur-100-Duartes-Tavern/

Good cream of artichoke soup is delicious. Vichyssoise is too - please save some for me.

Duarte's has long been known for its soup, served hot. They used to have a cream of chile/choke combo as well as the straight artichoke version. It made for a nice trip, a drive along the coast to arrive at its location barely big enough to be called a wide spot in the road. I stopped going there a few years ago. Inside it seemed to have evolved from period authentic/rough decor to downright frumpy and the food seemed to be slipping downhill too. Two bad experiences were enough.

These days, for those visiting the Peninsula/South Bay or going down the coast south of San Francisco and planning to continue farther south, I'd suggest aiming for any of several restaurants in the Monterey area also known for artichoke soup.

A curiosity of its name - whether of Spanish (do are-tays) or Portuguese (do are ches) origin, they nonetheless pronounce it do-arts.

Oh, yeah. I think you know this, given ”rice-y”, but do rice the potatoes, or use a inife or masher, but fluff, don't cut, and definitely don't blend. If other ingredients want blending, do it before the potato. Unless you're after glue...

I will have to get more leeks and russet potatoes.

I would love some fresh artichokes. I have tinned. It’s hard to find a place that sell Frozen artichoke hearts. Been through that. I adore artichokes. Californians are so blessed,

I began to make Moules Marinières, but the mussels were too dinky. I am taking them back.

Next up — spare ribs until I can get the other ingredients. Meanwhile, look at this disappointment:

Tiny mussels, and they float. (they shouldn’t float like this, IMO).

Cancel the Moules Marinières. These are going back.

The market will take them back and give me a refund, but they cannot give me back lost time and meal cancellation.

I am familiar with Mytilus edulis. They all but grew in my bedroom for many years. I considered mussel farming and had a perfect location, but real life, real people….

Next up, for tonight, BBQ ribs. Or,

Oh, dear! The poor bats! Yes, hoping they can be restored!

The food mill should be fine, especially if you don't over fill it or your bowl. I wouldn't even use a wimpy immersion blender on potatoes, though even a powerful one is probably a lot better than a regular blender just because you have to stand there holding it and likely stop before it really gets gluey. The idea that you can't whip potatoes too much involves undercooked potatoes and wooden spoons. Blenders do something nasty to the starch (I think it's the starch).

So sorry about your meal plans being foiled! Though my mother would have loved your petits bijoux mussels, though when you're paying by the pound and most of the weight is shells, I get it why they're going back!

IMO, yellow potatoes have more flavor than white ones. Just about the only kind I buy anymore are yellow/gold. I find them starchy enough for my taste/use. I mainly buy organic from Trader Joe's and Walmart.

I wonder if there is Tater Terroir. Quick! Somebody grab this and market it!

I feel like 'tater terroir' is redundant 😄

Another here who loves the yellow/golden potatoes. I needed baking potatoes once and didn't want to go to store, so used the goldens and they were delicious. Now when I have potatoes in the house it's usually goldens.

I have made Julia Childs Cream of Artichoke soup for Christmas (it is green) for probably 40 years. You cook your artichokes and scrape the flesh from the leaves with a spoon. It is a meditative sort of thing. Reserve the disc of flesh at the bottom of the choke. Saute lots of leeks in butter, pour in your home made very rich chicken broth and cook the leeks. Push through a sieve to get rid of any fiber. Salt pepper. Throw in the scraped flesh and puree with your stick blender, Add some cream. chop the bases into pieces and heat through. It is amazing rich and so very good and green. It is my second course. First is avocado halves slices decoratively with slivered strawberries and some balsamic vinegar (red and green) and so on. I have asparagus to go with the roast. Green and I own asparagus dishes. Cream of asparagus soup is not to be sneered at either.

" Reserve the disc of flesh at the bottom "

That, trimmed and with the stem cut off and the hairy fibers removed, is the "artichoke heart"

Edit to add::

I wonder how you find fresh artichokes at Christmas time. I think the bushes bloom twice a year, once in the spring, and then again late summer. December is a bit too long after the second crop to find decent good sized fresh ones in my area. Are you using the little ones?

^^^^^^ Oh, so dreamy sounding. You cook the large globe artichokes before scraping the leaves? I always get a kick out of the squeaking sounds whwn the large raw artichokes are forced open, say, for stuffing. You’d almost think they were rubber tub toys.

DH took the mussels back to the store and explained why they shouldn’t sell that brand again. They got plopped into the trash.

Sometimes I give the blue jays a treat of things like that. A few days ago I put some tough (forgot what) on the elevated bird table and was suprised to see a male cardinal dash off with a larhe meaty piece. Mayne I’m developing super-carnivorous tweety birds.

Plllog, I love the name bijoux. I love to watch potatoes go through a ricer. Its the sort of thing I could just do for maybe 30 minutes.I might need to start storing gadgets in something like a deck box or a boat.

This is the CF approved ricer that is wonderful to use and doesn't take a whole 30 minutes for five pounds of potatoes. It is huge and could use that boat you mentioned. There are a number of knock off versions of it, but if you want one read the reviews (I didn't)--the exact one is listed as unavailable. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000VWF5FC/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

For ricer watching you might want a prettier, less efficient, can style one. :)

I'll be contrarian about the potatoes. Yukon Golds are as good as everybody has said--but for your soup and the potato-y flavor, I still think baking potatoes are the way to go. It's the starchy flavor that makes potato soup taste potato-y.

To make the vichyssoise, you blend the potatoes in the stock with the leeks and onions so they won't go gooey. You don't want to pre-cook the potatoes. You want them to take on the flavour of the leeks, onions and stock. Add some milk and cream after blending, then chill and lastly add chives.

I get my artichokes at Costco Elmer. I assume the late ones are kept in cold storage though there is a late fall to December season. I occasionally will buy them when they are cheapest, precook and freeze them whole as a precaution, and yes petalique I use the large Globe Artichoke. I am aware that the fleshy disc is called the heart but not everyone knows and what part that actually is causes confusion sometimes since the tiny ones are sold pickled as artichoke hearts. Artichokes do not grow on bushes. They are herbaceous perennials since we are being so technical here. Julia Child herself said that the scraping of the leaves was tedious but so worth it. I am fond of artichokes and will use them for a salad course. I have four huge ones in my fridge. I cook and remove and arrange the leaves in bowls and make a dipping sauce of mayo and lemon juice. If they are really fleshy I will save the heart in a freezer bag to add to my flesh for my christmas soup. It really keeps well. I have tried growing them here but it just isnt warm enough. Freshly cooked is always best but you get bad years.

I agree with using russets for purees. If you are going for a really white soup then peel first. Cut into small cubes they cook very quickly but not much more than thin disks. My mother made us cut up potatoes for mashed into a small dice but my older sister and I learned that simply sliced did just as well. She chewed us out when she found out we weren't dicing but we refused to go back.

That is sad about the bats. I hope they recover!

Sliced russet potatoes break down easily when simmered in stock, so they don't need that much mashing or other glue-risking agitation. For smooth creamy potato-leek soup, I wonder if you could sub a bit of flour for cream, or even go the roux route?

Got it, patriciae. Even here near ground zero of the artichokeland, Costco is a reliable place to get moderately priced large chokes. Obviously the producer of the 4 unit bags would know how to successfully store the stuff, for longer periods, after picking.

It is possible Elmer that they are coming from Chile which has a similar maritime climate on its coast but the opposite season. They are also a major producer of Artichokes.

I used to grow Cardoons which I could in my Up-valley climate. Beautiful silvery plants of which you are supposed to eat the fleshy center of the leaves plant. Not. As it happens Artichokes are the garden cultivar of Cardoons. Amazing if you have grown both. Very Victorian as a garden plant. Beautiful flowers being huge thistles. I could never get an artichoke to make a flower head early enough. Maybe global warming will take care of that. It has been hotter in the summers here lately. I admit to be willing to forgo artichokes if we could have stalled global warming. Not happening.

I finally got to make the Vichysoisse a few days ago. I used the recipe from the NYT cookbook (blue hardcover), but added whole milk and omitter the cream for health considerations. Maybe next time I will add some cream. I used my homemade chicken broth/stock, filtered and most of the fat removed. I used about 4 or 5 leeks (white part) and about 4 good sized russet potatoes, peeled. It was not a think soup, so I blended it with an immersion blender (I love that tool!).

Today I had the soup served hot. I like it both ways. I might have only used 2 cups of whole milk. I added a small amount of finely grated nutmeg (freshly grated). I have lots of chives growing outdoors. I hould probably chop some to have on hand, dried.

I thought the soup was very good. Because I omitted the cream, it was slightly granular (not grainy).

it looks really good, and inviting!

I love my immersion blender too, but it's small and it doesn't go to 100% smooth and velvety. My Vita-mix will liquify anything, if allowed, but will also do velvety when restrained. It might not be the lack of cream.

The immersion blender is _____ brnad. Robust, come apart for washing. No blaneder jar to wash.

Lucky you to have one of those nice (and pricy) Vitamix blenders. There are so many models of the Vitamix, I find it ovrwhelming to even peruse them. I have an old but finctional Oster blender. A few years ago, I even bought an Ice cushing blade for it. I seldom use the blender (I rarely make smoothies and am not sure I get the point of liquifying items. It seems it is more healthful to now pulverize foods — if left in larger pieces you don’t get such a carb rush and I understnd that is better to have chunks of food to keep blood sugar more stable.

I got tired of trying to tease out blended food from the tapered blender jar. A year ago I bought a small/compact KA blender and use that for pureying and chopping things — pesto, baba ghanoug, minced ginger, garlic, lemon grass, chilies. Usually I just use a sharp knife (global 6:) to mince garlic, chilies, ginger, or to slice scallions.

I need more energy and time ;) I want/need to make the following very soon:

more Vichysoisse; Southwest Corn Chowder w chicken — low sodium, low fat; Baby Bok Choy stir fry; Kung Pao Chicken; some Chinese or Thai thing w bean sprouts;

Oh, I hear what your saying re the smoothness of the leek-potato soup. DH blended it.

What I need is energy, counter space and freedom from having to do so many other things. I think most people could find use for more time without distractions.

Artichichokes grow in fairly cold conditions. They grow like weeds here. Yum. That soup looks tasty too.

Do you serve the vichyoisse by itself, with a side, or as the start to a meal?

I suppose that in comparison to most on these forums, I am a pragmatic Yankee ruffian.

I am also supposed to eat low fat, low carbs, low calorie (equals beans, kale, spinach, whole grains — I guess) I enjoyed that ~ 8 oz to 10 oz bowl of soup solo. Just as it is. Sometimes I have inclued a few Grains First crackers.

I have no idea how others might enjoy this soup. What comes to mind for you? As you can imagine, it has a bit more flavor the next day.

Islay, I adore artichokes. Send me you extras ;-) Lucky you!

Not Exactly Vichyssoisse

I had tried to make mashed potatoes without dairy. It had been awhile. I used red potatoes, non dairy butter, and potato water (no non dairy milk). It was okay, but not creamy.

I tried to add the coconut thick stuff from coconut milk. I used too much and the potatoes were VERY soopy when hot.

Insert your recipe. I sweated leeks and onions in non dairy butter. Simmered in my chicken stock, and add the potatoes. Also some salt and pepper. A new favorite recipe.

OMG, it was fantastic! A new favorite recipe.

petalique, I just saw your pic of the Vichy. Looks really good…and pretty!👍🏻