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Cream of Potato Soup with Watercress

paula

Spring is finally here! It makes me think of celebrating the Irish and Easter, planting potatoes and peas, enjoying flowers and showers, gathering dandelion greens and watercress…wait what? Okay, it has been many years since I went on the fun adventure of gathering greens like dandelions and watercress from rural West Virginia with my mom and her siblings, but I still have the fond memories.

Although dandelion greens and watercress are not as popular as kale and other greens, they both are nutritional powerhouses. Of the two, the versatile watercress is my favorite. If you can only think of watercress as ingredient in petite sandwiches, I think your missing a lot. It is a sort of peppery green that is said to contain vitamins K, C, and A, iron, calcium, and other nutrients.

It is also can be purchased at Earth Fare supermarkets…not searching the wild and extensive cleaning needed 🙂  They sell it in the produce section in a bag, but it is a live plant.  All you have to do is “harvest” it when you get ready to use it.

I decided to use the watercress in my version of one of my mom’s favorite soups, potato soup. Both potato soup and watercress always remind me of my mom and they go great together.

This simple soup is lightened by using either ginger beer or sparkling apple cider, making it a great soup for the warmer months. It can be served warm or at room temperature.

Recipe: Potato Soup with Watercress

Ingredients:

  • 1 Tbsp. butter, unsalted
  • 1 med. onion, diced
  • 4 c. potatoes, peeled and cut (fingerling, russet, gold, etc.)
  • 1 qt. vegetable or chicken stock, homemade or low sodium
  • salt, to taste
  • 1/4 c. +/- ginger beer or sparkling apple cider, to taste
  • 1 package or 1 +/- c. watercress leaves
  • 1/4 +/- c. cream, half-and-half, or milk, to taste
  • white pepper, if desired

Instructions:

  1. In a heavy bottomed pot, melt butter.
  2. Add onion and cook until tender and translucent.
  3. Add stock, salt (if using low sodium stock), and potatoes.
  4. Boil until potatoes are tender.
  5. Reduce heat to med. low and add ginger beer or sparkling cider.
  6. Add watercress leaves and cook for about a minute until the leaves have wilted.
  7. Remove from heat.
  8. Using a hand submersion blender or in small batches in an upright blender, blend soup until desired smoothness.
  9. Add desired amount of cream.
  10. Season to taste with additional salt and pepper, if desired.
  11. Serve warm or cold.

Copyright © 2014.
Recipe by Paula, A Simple Home Cook.

I am honored to have been asked by Earth Fare to write this post in exchange for a gift card to buy the ingredients. I love shopping at Earth Fare not only because of the great quality of food, but because they offer such great deals and coupons…no, they did not ask me to share my opinion, it is my own. You can find all the ingredients for this recipe at Earth Fare.

 

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