Beyond baking borders

Greetings from my couch...where I am eating a piece of pineapple pie and drinking my new favorite hot drink, consisting of hot water, fresh lemon juice, sliced pieces of ginger and honey.  Since I am barefoot and baking in the kitchen, my posts are primarily consisting of baking adventures, however in this post I will broaden my field just a little..nothing outside the kitchen...but I want to share a super yummy meal that I made last night. I am an avid soup and bread fan and when I find a good soup recipe I feel my recipe book becomes more complete. Last night we had a few guests over and so I decided that I would win them over with my amazing soup skills. The soup was made with leek and potatoes and creme fraiche. Creamy in it's consistency, this soup is melt in your mouth goodness. Served on the side was home made rosemary and sunflower bread. Confession: made in our bread machine...every baker has their weakness. I recommend this combo as the flavors in the soup and bread complimented each other perfectly. For dessert, I served pineapple custard pie. Last week, we bought a fresh pineapple (definitely better in Thailand) and made sweet and sour vegetables for dinner. Since we had half of it left over which needed to be used I thought about combining it with a normal pie crust as the base and then covered with custard. It looked great and I think it tasted okay, but here is my suggestion. Since it was a fresh pineapple, the taste became a little more bitter and that taste unfortunately took over too much for me to say this was one of the best desserts ever. However, I think if you want to make this...which I am sure I have totally convinced you with my incredible advertisement...use canned pineapple. It's sweeter to begin with and I think (but no guarantees) that it will taste better. If it still taste bitter, then I suggest you throw away my recipe. Who wants crap dessert...not me!
All in all I think our dinner was a success, the guests were happy, which is a good thing. So I would recommend winning your guests over with this steaming bowl of  creamy soup, rosemary bread and pineapple pie.

Until my next post, branch out beyond your normal boundaries and share the goodness with others.
Barefoot and Baking ( and cooking) in the kitchen

Chopped Leeks and Potatoes

 Melting butter

Chopped garlic

Cooking leeks

Potatoes added

Bringing to a boil

Finished product

Bread baking in the machine. I just added rosemary
and sunflower seeds to the recipe. You can use your
favorite bread recipe.

Pie crust in the beginning stages

Forming dough

Nice and shaped in the pie dish

Chopped pineapple

Baked pie, please excuse the eaten sides,
this picture was taken after it was served

Recipes for soup and pie

Leek and Potato soup
2 tbsp. butter/margarine
2 garlic cloves
3 large leeks(purjolök in Swedish)
5-7 potatoes (medium to large is fine)
1/2 tbsp. thyme
1/2 tbsp. basil
1 tbsp. oregeno
1/2 tsp. rosemary (optional)
2 bay leaves
3.5-5 C. vegetable stock (make sure the water is covering the potatoes, I add more if needed)
1 C. creme fraiche

Melt the butter in a large pan, add farlic and cook 1 minute. Add leek and cook for 2 minutes. Add potatoes, herbs and stock, bring to boil, then cook on lower hear for 25 minutes. Cool and then transfer 1/2 the soup to the blender or mash it in the pan. return to the rest of the soup. Stir in creme fraiche. Sprinkle shredded cheese for serving.

Pineapple pie
Crust:
1 C. flour
1/2 C cold butter
pinch of salt
2 tbsp. ice water

Mix the dry ingredients, cut in butter add ice water and continue working until dough forms. Roll out and put in pie 9" form

Chop pineapple into small pieces pour on the crust.

Custard
Either buy already made or powdered and follow instructions. I had a box of custard mix and I made 4 portions which was enough to cover the entire pie.

Served with hot tea or coffee!