Greens Soup

I've been working on an academic paper for the past 9 months or so.  It's been rough going and one of the biggest problems I've faced is trying to figure out what exactly it is that I'm trying to tell people by writing this and using the university's money to get it published in a highly visible journal.  After taking a few days to step back and ponder, I think I really understand the message I want to get across and this has allowed me to become more focused and efficient.  I think the same goes for this blog.

What is the purpose for writing this?  Is it to just share recipes that we've swapped, or should there be something more?  Personally, I've used this to try to step up my game in terms of picture taking.  I'm working on quality too, but even taking pictures has been a struggle for me over at my other food blog.  Ahem.  But there's more to this blog than just disseminating our culinary results.  One of the main purposes here is to promote cooking at home.  It doesn't matter if it's fancy or simple, but the act of controlling what goes in one's food allows the home cook to cater to specific tastes, maintain the nutritional integrity of a dish, and generally increase the quality of what one eats.

It's hard to always make time to cook.  It seems that with busy lives and schedules, it's hard to sit down to eat, let alone start with a cupboard of ingredients.  One thing that I've started to do more and more is making large batches and freezing the leftovers.  The CSA that Colby and I belong to has been really greens heavy in the past.  It's not a problem, but sometimes it's hard to use up all the produce before it goes bad.  I've taken to blanching and freezing the greens for some later purpose.  It wasn't until tonight that I finally put my first big batch in a dish.  I also made way too many potatoes awhile back and froze those as well.  Colby and I got home from work on the late side and I decided that I wanted something simple for dinner.  This is what we came up with.

Greens soup
2 bunches greens, blanched or wilted (I used my freezer supply of swiss chard and spinach)
~1/2 lb potato, boiled (I used Yukon golds)
1 T extra virgin olive oil
1/2 onion, diced
1-2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 c stock
1/2 c milk
s+p, to taste
sour cream

In a medium-sized sauce pan, sweat the onions and a pinch of kosher salt in oil until they are translucent. ~5 minutes or so. Add in the crushed garlic and stir until fragrant ~30 s. Add in the greens, potatoes, milk, and stock.  Cook until everything is heated through and then puree until smooth.  Taste for seasoning.  Serve with a dollop of sour cream.

This recipe is incredibly versatile.  This was made with whatever I happened to have on hand.  Instead of a yellow onion, I had some really nice green onions from my CSA, so I used them before they went bad.  The greens are definitely interchangeable, as well as the liquids.  I used milk because I just bought a gallon and chicken stock because we always have that.  For a rich, tangy taste (without the sour cream) you could sub in some buttermilk, for instance.