Joyously Living Life: Sakura china

Hello Friends~ ~ ~

I've got a few things going on here that I want to share with you. First thing is I would like to have your opinion about serving white soup in a white bowl. Maybe some of you might think I'm a little crazy but I consider these things when I'm serving food. Today as I ladled the soup into the bowl I was thinking, Should I be using the gold bowls that go with the Provencal plates? Personally the earthy warm colors of the plate seem to be asking for a creamier colored bowl not one so stark and white. What are your thoughts on the subject? I am not fond of the above picture. The white bowl is to cool for the surrounding warmer shades, to my eye anyway.

The plate is made by SAKURA and the patten is called Les Olives. I bought it a few years ago at a really great price because they were discontinuing the pattern. Such a shame because I really love it

OK, on to What's in the bowl?

Sorry folks but I really don't have a recipe for this soup. I can tell you what I used but the measurements are flexible depending on the size of your soup pot and the amount of potatoes you use. I needed to use up some of the many yams I had on hand so I made a big pot of Cream of Two Potato Soup. I used white Kenneback potatoes and yams in the picture above. The 3 small onions chopped and 3 garlic cloves minced.

This is the pot of the cubed potatoes finished boiling with the salt, pepper and 2 bay leaves. I drained off all the cooking water but a scant inch. Then added 4-5 cups of half & half, depending on how thick or soupy you like it.

You can also save this cooking broth for a vegetable broth for another soup later in the week. I sometimes do that with my pasta cooking water too. It adds lots of flavor to the coming broth to start with this water. You could add a chicken carcass and more vegetables and boil it down a bit to flavor it some more.

I hard cooked 11 eggs and chopped them up and added them to the pot. More salt & pepper and a few spoons of parsley and a dash of nutmeg. Oh, and 2 bay leaves to the pot.

I saute the onions and garlic separately till translucent and season with about 1-2 tsp. Thyme.
I used about 6 T. butter to do the saute. I love butter in Potato soup, it's a must.

Ta Da. The end result.

Oh no, What's this? A huge bowl with a plate on top. This bowl is living in my fridge for about 3 weeks now.

Here's what's inside. A clump of sourdough bread dough.

Yesterday I made 2 loaves from this clump and this will make 2 more, maybe tomorrow. It keeps in the fridge for a few days. I've been making this bread about every 3 days for the last 3 weeks and we are still not tired of it.

This is the easiest bread I have ever made, and the best tasting too. Perfect every time.
It's like a loaf of European bread chewy inside and crusty outside. We love it.

I got the recipe over at Heather Bullard's blog. I'm not going to recopy the recipe here but as soon as I have the link I'll put it up for you. It's extensive but after doing it once you can make this bread without the recipe.

Please click to go to Heathers Bread post.

If you are not familiar with this Beautiful Blog

you really must stop by.

This week I'm linking up to Susan at

Between Naps On The Porch

for Table Scape Thursday.