A Vegetarian Thanksgiving Feast

Someone just asked me what I'd serve at a strictly vegetarian Thanksgiving. I'd follow the usual criteria and cover the table with eye dazzling color, stomach filling heartiness, comforting yet glamorous dishes of seasonal ingredients. Plus it has to be memorable.  So, like this:

*   indicates recipe is in Veggiyana, the Dharma of Cooking (Wisdom Publications)
**  indicates recipe has been posted on this blog
*** indicates recipe is in How to Fix a Leek and Other Food from Your Farmers' Market (Eat These Words Press)

First Round
Turkish Pumpkin Pancakes*
or Libyan Pumpkin Dip** and
Corn Tart*
Wild Rice and Pecan Salad*
Nutmeat Paté*

Second Round
Root Vegetable Pot Pie*
or Winter Vegetable Timbale*
Red Kuri Squash with Kale Mushroom Stuffing***
Pumpkin stuffed with Rice, Saffron, Apricots**
Grit Souffle with Piperade*
Potato Tart***
Apples Stuffed with Sweet Potatoes***
Blueberry Apple Chutney***
Cranberry Walnut Preserve***

Third Round
Raw Kale Cranberry Salad*
Assorted local cheeses

Dessert
It's all vegetarian so enjoy yourself to the hilt!
I usually offer a fruit crisp, Indian pudding, apple tart and chocolate cake.

An All American Thanksgiving: New World Foods

Thanksgiving is America's take on a traditional harvest festival. That's why the menu feels inflexible: gotta serve turkey and hold your beef. But the menu can be exciting, flexible and all American if you include these authentic all-stars: foods native to the Americas.

Turkey (wild turkeys are native. I suppose you could say the manufactured, insipid Butterball now is also)

Lobster:  Okay, here's a chance to get away from turkey and still stay all American. Have it your way.
Bison/Buffalo: Well, you know that old cowboy lament: O give me a home where the buffalo roam....
so you would not be apostate serving this in lieu of turkey. Or you could just get ground meat, and in honor of all the Chinese who built the crosscountry railway tracks, put it in dumplings

Smoked Trout: makes a great appetizer.
Salt Cod: The United States of America is the end product of the race to conquer the cod market and monopolize salt cod. So it's in our DNA. It's also in many very yummy European recipes, my current favorite being France's brandade: a casserole of salt cod and, ta da, potatoes--a gift from South America. This is such a perfect stomach and heart warming first course, here's the recipe I use:

BRANDADE

Serves 8-10 as a first course

1 lb skinless, boneless salt cod

1c milk

1 thyme sprig or 1/4 tsp dried thyme leaves

2 bay leaves

5-6 peppercorns

1/2 tsp ground allspice or 2 allspice berries

2 whole cloves

1 lb boiling potatoes, cut in 1” cubes

6 lg garlic cloves, peeled

salt and freshly ground black pepper

1/3-1/2 c olive oil

Pinch cayenne or red pepper flakes (1/4 tsp if you like this tangy)

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1 tsp grated lemon zest

1/2 c crème fraiche plus another 3 tbsp

3 tbsp butter

1/2 c bread crumbs (coarse is preferred but fine works)

Rinse salt cod carefully, rubbing off any noticeable salt. Soak in a large bowl of water at least 8 hours, changing the water every four hours or leaving it overnight.  Drain and rinse again when ready to use.

In a medium/lg saucepan, heat milk with 1 c water. Add salt cod, thyme, bay leaf, peppercorns, allspice and cloves. As soon as the pot wants to boil, reduce heat to simmer and cook until the fish falls apart and flakes, about 15-20 minutes. Remove fish from the pot.

While the cod is cooking, put cut potatoes in another pot with a good pinch of salt and cover with water. Bring to a boil. Add the garlic cloves.  As soon as the potatoes are soft enough to mash, remove from heat and drain. Keep both the garlic and cooking liquid; you’ll need them.

Put the garlic in a small saucepan and crush or smash it lightly. Add the olive oil and over medium heat, warm the garlic. Don’t fry, just warm it.

In a large mixing bowl combine the cooked potatoes and flaked salt cod. Use a potato masher to blend them. Drizzle in the warm garlic and oil and keep mashing toward the look of mashed potatoes. Add the cayenne, nutmeg and lemon zest, thoroughly blending. Stir in 1/2 c crème fraiche and mash to blend.

Now using an immersion blender or hand mixer or your masher, add about 1/2 cup potato cooking liquid to thin the brandade into a soft mash. Add salt and freshly ground black pepper to your taste. 

Grease a shallow 1 qt baking dish or pie plate with 1 tbsp butter. Fill the dish with the brandade, leveling it with a spatula. At this point, you can refrigerate the mix overnight if you need to.

Heat oven to 400º. Bring the brandade to room temperature if you refrigerated it. Paint the top with those 3 tbsp crème fraiche and sprinkle on the breadcrumbs. Dot the surface with bits of the remaining 2 tbsp butter. Bake until golden on top and bubbling around the edges, about 20 minutes.

Serve immediately with toast.

Cranberries: add dried ones to wild rice or kale salad or cornbread stuffing or use fresh in a chutney.
Wild blueberries (the little ones): make a chutney (see How to Fix a Leek... book) or pie

Cornmeal: great cornbread or cornbread stuffing, cornmeal pancakes (arepas recipe in Veggiyana, the Dharma of Cooking) maybe topped with avocado and salsa (both come from all American ingredients). or with creme fraiche from Vermont and smoked salmon from the Atlantic or Pacific. And then of course there's Indian Pudding, probably the most perfect dessert for the day: cornmeal and molasses glorified in this photo into the shape of a cake, about to be iced with whipped cream.

Recipe in Veggiyana, The Dharma of Cooking.

Squash: this means pumpkins too of course because all winter squash comes from the Americas. So indulge in squash soup or roasted squash glazed with maple syrup, another American native. Stuff large squashes with spicy chili since peppers and beans are all American too. Make squash or pumpkin pie, or check out the post before this for more exotic dishes.

Potatoes: These were the brainchildren of the Inca in South America. If you don't want them on the main plate mashed, baked, stuffed or roasted, think about a first course of lobster/potato salad with a red bell and smokey poblano pepper, both\ central American natives.

Beans: except for the fava and chickpea, beans come from the Americas. Pinto, kidney and black beans are especially tasty in cornbread stuffing or a chili stuffing for squash. Black bean soup is a great meal opener. I happen to love buttery cranberry beans, sometimes cooked with lots of garlic, tomato (another American native) and sage or rosemary.  And then, of course, there's succotash: lima beans with corn, that can be very tasty when you toss in a smidgen of chorizo or bacon, and a bit of hot pepper. I've got lots of deliciously easy bean recipes in Veggiyana, the Dharma of Cooking if you need one.

Wild Rice: This grain, which has no relation to other rice and is especially nutritious, is native to specific lakes of Northern Minnesota.  It's fabulous as a salad with cranberries, mandarins, kale and pecans (from the South). It's fabulous mixed with white rice and vegetables as turkey stuffing. It's nutty flavor and texture is simply great plain too.

Chocolate: Now we get to the good stuff! Viva Mexico that gave us cacao. Molé your turkey if you don't want chocolate pudding or cake for dessert.
Vanilla: the original came from Mexico too, from the pod of a particular climbing orchid, so feel free to use it anyway you can.

 

The Squash racket

It's time to break into those colorful winter squashes whose uses can be endless and endlessly fascinating. I'll cut to the chase and serve up a splendid presentation: a Turkish wedding dish that takes some doing but is not difficult in the slightest. It would be a conversation piece on your Thanksgiving table.

Red Kuri Squash Stuffed with a Saffron, Apricot and Cherry Pilaf

1 lg (2 1/2 lb) red kuri squash--or sugar pumpkin
1 cup (heaping) long grain Basmati or Jasmine rice (rinsed)
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp unsalted butter
a big pinch of saffron threads
1 1/2 tsp ground coriander
Peel of 1/3 orange (no pith please), sliced into very thin strips
1/4 cup pistachio nutmeats
1/4 cup roasted pumpkin seeds (pepitas)
1/4 cup dried cherries soaked in boiling water 5 minutes and drained
8-10 dried apricots, chopped into bite-size pieces
1 tsp rosewater
1/2 tsp salt
Freshly ground pepper to your taste
1 bunch flat leaf parsley, coarsely chopped
1 bunch mint coarsely chopped or 1/2 cup dried mint leaves
1 bunch dill, coarsely chopped
1 lemon cut in wedges for garnish
1 cup thick fresh yogurt for serving

Preheat over to 400º. Soak the saffron threads in 1 tsp hot water.

Wash the squash and microwave it just long enough to soften it so you can put a knife in.
Cut off the stalk end to use as a lid. Scoop out all seeds and strings. Put the lid back on the squash, put the squash on a baking sheet and put it in the oven for 1 hour.

Now, put the rice in a pot with just enough water to cover it. Add a pinch of salt and bring to a boil. Lower heat to simmer, partially cover the pot and cook 10-12 minutes until all the water is absorbed. (The rice will not be totally cooked, no worries.)

Meanwhile in a wide lidded skillet or casserole, heat oil and butter until butter melts. Stir in coriander, orange peel, pistachios, pumpkin seeds, drained cherries and apricots. Sauté one minute. Add the rice, saffron (with water) and rose water. Season with salt and pepper.

Turn off the heat. Cover the pot with a clean, dry dish towel and press the pan lid down over it to a tight fit. Let the pilaf steam for 10 minutes. Toss in the parsley, dill and mint.

When squash is ready, lift off the lid and fill it with the pilaf, gently stuffing it in. Put the lid back on and put the stuffed squash back in the oven for 20 minutes.

Remove the lid to serve. Slice the lemon into wedges. There are two ways to present this: one is to simply put the wedges all around the squash on a serving plate, put 1/4 of the yogurt on top of the pilaf and pass the rest in a separate bowl, and let everybody dig in. Or you can slice a 1/2" thick round off the top of the squash, lay this ring on a plate, fill it with the pilaf, top this with yogurt and place a lemon wedge to one side.

Serve as the center of attention with a side of garlicky steamed greens or serve with roasted meat.

Turkish pumpkin pancakes, recipe in Veggiyana, the Dharma of Cooking, are always crowd pleasers, eye dazzlers and cook friendly. They are also gluten free! 

And here is something equally wonderful and unique: Libyan Pumpkin Dip

1.2 lbs  fresh pumpkin

2 cloves garlic, pressed

a pinch of salt

2 tbsp vinegar

1/2 tsp caraway seed ground

1/2 tsp crushed chili pepper

4 tbsp olive oil

This recipe should be made with orange pumpkin but I couldn't find any at my farmer's market so I used another variety. Cut the skin off, deseed and cut into small chunks. To cook, place in a pan with a little olive oil, cover and let simmer, turning every once in a while. You can use canned pumpkin and skip this step of course, but here it can only be bought in a few specialty stores and it is extremely overpriced. Once the pumpkin has softened, mash it with a fork until it has a smooth texture. In another pan, sauté the pressed garlic and crushed chili pepper in a little olive oil and then mix into the pumpkin and keep simmering over low heat. In the meantime, crush the caraway seeds with a mortar and pestle. After about 10 minutes, add the vinegar and salt into the pan and let cook for another 10-15 minutes. Just before taking the pan off the heat, add in the caraway powder and mix well. The texture should be dense, soft and creamy, not liquid. Let cool and serve with crunchy bread.

Harvest Time: Celebrate the Moment

My blazing leaf October weekend ended with a warmly cheerful dinner party of nine. Everybody brought something to the table, and the array turned out to be the most perfect celebration of that exact moment: the last fresh sheep milk cheese of the year with the first pears, my root vegetable stew, Bubble and Squeak (the last dug potatoes mashed with cabbage and kale), the first meat roast of the cold season with the last fresh herbs and the last tomatoes in a salad of the last outdoor lettuces, first apples crisp with homemade ice cream. That menu should let you get why everybody stayed so long and left so happy.

It was the weekend of Canadian Thanksgiving. It should have been ours too, but in his attempt to remedy the Great Depression, Franklin Roosevelt moved it to late November to placate America's Chambers of Commerce begging for a full blown whistle start to the Christmas shopping season. Perhaps that's why our Thanksgiving never feels like the harvest festival it is supposed to be. The particular foods we are scheduled to celebrate--cranberries, squash, pumpkins, wild turkeys-- are already gone by. Just looking at your farmers' market tells you the corn season ended long ago.

So Americans don't fete the food supply that assures our survival. Since we no longer live off the land but just go to the supermarket to find any food we want any time we want it, we have forgotten how precious a good harvest truly is. Food is the only certainty for  surviving the cold, dark time of year. For forever, abundant crops have been humanity’s most coveted prize, our supreme sign of good fortune. That's why almost every other society has some special autumn ceremony of gratitude for its stockpile of nourishment. Germany's Oktoberfest, China's Moon Festival, Poland's Doznki and Ireland's Samhain that gave us our Halloween customs.

The West's ur festival is the Hebrew Sukkot so carefully prescribed in the Bible. Sukkot, from the Hebrew word for "booths" or "huts", comes from the dictate in Exodus to celebrate the major fruit harvest. Eventually it morphed into a mandatory pilgrimage, a sort of hajj on specific days when people had to carry their first fruits to the Temple in Jerusalem for the High Priest to offer to God. Sukkot also fetes the Four Species or special plants: the etrog (a citrus fruit native to Israel), the palm, myrtle and willow -- all symbolic of crucial desert necessities that saved lives. In their diaspora far from the Temple, Jews used Sukkot to commemorate the 40 years their ancestors wandered in the desert, living in temporary shelters and harvesting whatever they could to survive. That's why for this particular holiday, devout Jews construct in a growing field a hut or garden shelter made from gathered stalks, stems, branches, vines, leaves, fruits and flowers--all symbols of harvest. The top will be open enough to see the sky where prayers of thanks are aimed. 

Wanting a sacred way to express their thanks for a harvest that sustained them, the Plymouth Pilgrims acted on the Biblical exhortation to build this harvest hut, thus launching our autumn tradition of decorating our own dooryards with cornstalks, pumpkins and wreaths of dried herbs or flowers.

It is of course likely that the Pilgrims borrowed the whole idea of honoring food from their hosts, who are definitely pictured at that first Thanksgiving. The aboriginal Americans called the gloriously bright and round full moon that follows the autumn equinox (September 21) Harvest Moon, for its appearance signaled the moment to gather together the magnificent gifts of the Great Spirit: corn, berries, beans, grains, nuts, fish, and small game. (Notice how these are our traditional Thanksgiving foods?)  Having taken these gifts, Native Americans wanted to give a gift back, so they used harvest time to offer ritual praise and thanks to every living thing that had sacrificed its existence to become the food or clothing that would allow them to survive. They celebrated their good fortune with dance, drumming, games and feasting--all prelude to the big game hunt that would insure survival through the winter.
 

The actual first non-native Thanksgiving took place in Canada in 1578 when the English explorer Martin Frobisher arrived in Newfoundland and supposedly gave thanks to the Almighty for his safe arrival in the New World. The Canadian Thanksgiving tradition we know now began shortly after that. French settlers who came with the explorer Samuel de Champlain, brought their religious customs with them and celebrated their successive successful harvests with prayers of gratitude and feasting. They also generously shared their bounty with natives in their surround. Their heirs and communities continued this festivity on weather dependent dates between mid October and early November until 1957 when the Canadian Parliament designated the second Monday in October "a day of general thanksgiving to almighty God for the bountiful harvest with which Canada has been blessed." 

Notice, that date is now America’s Columbus Day, a lame way of marking a profound moment. Our harvest comes home, our farmers' markets shrink and shut and nobody notices. We're out to lunch at white sales and soccer games. Why should this blindness matter? Why should it matter that we have shoved ourselves out of sync with the seasons and natural scheme of things? Well, you can look at our health care mess or you can read all the studies that now confirm, as one reporter put it: "...one reason food rituals enhance flavor and enjoyment is their ability to focus people’s interest on the ensuing consumption." Then you can celebrate with a big harvest meal of your farmers' market finest to find out if that's right. Why not discover something on Columbus Day.

Digging Deeper into our Roots: the Swede!

Just about everywhere else in the world that grows it, the yellow turnip we know as a Rutabaga is called a Swede. That should tell you it's a cold climate crop. The rutabaga is cultivated not just because it grows and can feed us in the frozen north, but for its vivid color, exotic taste--sweeter than the ordinary turnip but piquant in a mild way, and above all its extraordinary goodness. You gotta like a veggie that pumps iron and potassium into you, that strengthens your thyroid and your collagen connections, that gives you almost all the Vitamin C you're going to need for the day. Think of all those antioxidants flowing into your immune system here on the threshold of cold and flu season and eat a rutabaga or two.

The Swedes are piled high at farmers' markets right now, at least in the northern half of the nation, and they're not waxed like the supermarket ones, so you know they're freshly dug. (That wax is a commercial ag preservative for the long winter haul.) If you don't know what to do with one, think potato and treat it the same way: mashed rutabagas are a Thanksgiving standard. You just peel the bulb, cut it up and submerge it in boiling salted water until its tender. I've been known to put a star anise in that water to intensify the rutabaga's unique flavor. You can also toss in a few cloves to add a mysterious smokiness. Then just like with potatoes, you puree or mash the soft rutabaga chunks, adding salt and pepper along with a spoon of creme fraiche or light cream, even whipped cream cheese. Or nothing at all and the dish will still be delish. You can even whip in a pinch of smoked paprika if you like.

A fancier form of this would be timbales, individual custard size servings of mashed rutabaga smoothed in a mold. The recipe is in the book How to Fix a Leek....and it makes the most perfect dish to set beside a roast chicken or turkey or beef bourgogne.

You can also treat the swede like winter squash. You peel it (maybe 2 lbs) then slice it into 2" thick disks, brush them with melted butter (4 tbsp) and lay them single layer on a buttered baking sheet. Bake at 400º for 15 minutes, then turn them over and coat the top side of each disk with honey (about 1/4 c) and continue to bake another 5-10 minutes until tender. Notice this dish is salt free.

I've seen rutabaga combined with the almost flavorless butternut squash in a lovely mash seasoned with a pinch of smoky chipotle chili, one medium squash and 2 swedes, and heard about this combination made into a thick comforting soup. This involves peeling both the swedes and the squash and optionally a sweet potato, chunking them, drizzling them with olive oil and salt and roasting them at 400º for 45-60 minutes until they are soft.
It also involves sauteeing a diced yellow onion in butter with a pinch of clove and a pinch of cinnamon. Finally in a processor or blender, you combine the roasted veggies with the sauteed onion and spices, salt and freshly ground pepper, a pinch of smoked paprika or chipotle chili, 3 cups of vegetable broth and a cup of cream. Whiz this into a thick pureed soup.

The Scots love the swede. It puts the key flavor in their Scotch Broth. I gave the recipe for that famed lamb/leek/barley soup two posts back while discussing leeks. I myself never fail to include a small cut up rutabaga with the onion, carrot and potato in my autumn ginger flavored beef stews. The swede gives them zing.

And finally, fan that I am of all the roots, I never fail to put rutabaga in my autumn root vegetable stew, served as root vegetable potpie in my book Veggiyana, the Dharma of Cooking. It's right at home with equally flavorful and colorful parsnips, carrots, purple potatoes, yam or sweet potato, celeriac, turnips, daikon, leeks, red onions, ginger and garlic. It's heartwarming how all these strong individual flavors work together to be so nutritious and delicious. It's the perfect tribute to the glory of the frozen north.

Garlic: Don't let a life saver poison you

As part of this mini series on the roots of autumn, here's a reminder to buy all the garlic you can store from your local farmers' market vendors. Even if it doesn't carry "organic" bragging rights, it's going to be a much safer bet than what you might pick up at the local supermarket.

Maybe you forgot or didn't even know in the first place but among the more shocking food practices of modern day China has been soaking its commercially grown garlic in formaldehyde to make sure it's dazzling bright white, the way we are supposed to imagine perfect garlic should be. And that's on top of the fact that Chinese garlic is being grown in highly toxic soils polluted by industrial chemicals and human waste.  Bulbs that grow under the ground, which is to say fatten in the soil, are 100% likely to absorb whatever poisons are in the soil around it.  In other words, the cheap Chinese garlic so abundant in chain supermarkets could be toxic.

Some supermarkets do post their garlic's country of origin. I've seen Argentina mentioned at Whole Foods but have no idea how to evaluate that product. Gilroy, CA used to be the garlic capital of the USA, producing at least 80% of what we all consumed before the 21st Century. Cheap Chinese product has seriously damaged that area but the farmers still grow good garlic. So when your farmers' market garlic runs out midwinter, at least look for supermarket garlic that says: Country of Origin USA. Chances are it's from Gilroy.

And you do want to eat garlic!  Yes it smells and yes that odor can haunt your breath. That's why it's been called Italian birth control. ;o) But that smell is sulfur and it's on your breath because sulfur doesn't get digested in the stomach. It goes straight to your lungs, which it cleans up just like the wonder drug sulfur is. So it could help prevent colds, maybe even the bronchial ailments of winter and flu. That sulfur also gets pumped into your bloodstream, which is why sweat can smell of garlic. It's cleaning up there too.

Easiest way to enjoy a clove of garlic and spread its wealth is to smash one with the back of a chef's knife or cleaver, peel it and mince it. Add the pieces to a simple but simply perfect salad dressing: 1 part Balsamic vinegar to 3 parts good quality olive oil.

Another super easy way to get garlic working for you is to smash the bulb on the counter to separate the cloves, peel them and strew them among some walnut sized potatoes and peeled baby carrots on a baking sheet. Drizzle olive oil on, sprinkle a pinch of salt and roast everything at 450º for 12 minutes, or until the potatoes, garlic and carrots are crunchy on the outside but soft inside. (Hints: line the sheet with aluminum foil for easy cleanup. You can use a toaster oven baking pan if you're only doing this for 3 people.) Serve as a side dish.

You can really go for it with the famed Chicken with 40 cloves of garlic, a roast chicken dish that proves how lusciously sweet garlic can become. You'd never know it was that smelly bulb.

Garlicky Bean Soup
Serves 2 - 3

2 cups cooked white beans
1 1/2 cups reserved bean cooking water*
1/4 cup olive oil
4-5 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 cup chopped parsley

Heat olive oil over gentle heat. Add chopped garlic. Let cook for a few minutes, but do not let it brown. Add the beans, and give a good stir. Add the water, and bring to a simmer. Let cook for about ten minutes, covered.

Take off the heat. Using an immersible blender, blend the soup just a bit. I like to have some whole beans floating around, but also like to give the watery broth a thickness.

Taste and adjust for salt and pepper.

To serve, ladle into bowls, sprinkle with parsley and drizzle some extra virgin olive oil on top. If you want to make the dish even more filling, put a piece of toasted rustic bread at the bottom of the bowl. And if you want to add more garlic, rub the toast with a clove of garlic.

*If you are using canned beans, don’t use the water from the can. Instead, use water or else a light broth.

Okay, How to Fix a Leek

It's that leek time of year when the stalks are fresh, cheaply abundant and few people know how to take full advantage of the situation. Leeks add a unique soft, sweet onion flavor to whatever you cook. They don't require much fussing once you clean them. They put iron in your body and like their less sophisticated onion cousins, help your immune system--perfect right now at the change of season. So here are the easiest ways to fix a leek, and in some cases preserve it for winter enjoyment.

Basic Vichyoisse Soup aka Leek and Potato Soup
This is traditionally served cold but I've served it warm and nobody complained. ;o)
It doesn't freeze well.

two large and one small leek
2 potatoes
1 tsp  thyme
1 tbsp unsalted butter
1/3 -1/2 cup milk or to gild this use cream or compromise for the creamy effect and use evaporated milk
salt and pepper

Clean the leeks carefully and chop.
Peel potatoes and cut into small pieces.
Melt butter in a pot over MEDIUM heat--NOT HIGHEST HEAT.
Put in leeks and thyme and cook until the leeks are covered with butter and soft.
Add potatoes, salt and pepper. Stir to cover potatoes with butter.
Add enough water to cover what is in the pot. You can also add vegetable broth if you prefer.
Cover the pot and cook on low heat until the potatoes are very soft.
Put what is in the pot into the food processor and blend until smooth.
Add the milk and stir to mix everything well.
Serve warm or cool.
You can chop parsley to put on top when serving.


Here's a Turkish leek soup with feta and dill you might prefer:
Serves 4

2 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp unsalted butter

3 med/lg leeks trimmed, chopped and washed

1 med red onion, peeled and diced

2½ cups vegetable broth or water

1 bunch fresh dill, chopped

1 cup milk

½ tsp salt

1 tsp. freshly ground black pepper

4 oz. fresh feta, crumbled

Smoked paprika or ground chipotle chili powder or paprika for garnish

Heat oil and butter in a heavy pot over med heat. Add leeks and onions. Sauté them until soft, about 10 minutes.  

 Add 2/3 of the dill and broth or water. Blend all ingredients. Bring to a boil, lower heat and simmer for 15 minutes.  

 Cool slightly and puree soup. Add milk, remaining dill, salt and pepper. Heat on simmer until warm. Do not boil.

 Ladle into serving bowls. Top each with crumbled feta and paprika or chili. You can also add any extra dill fronds or minced flat leaf parsley.

And finally, a third soup, the famous Scotch Broth, a one-pot heart and body warming combination of lamb, leeks and barley. This one will serve hearty bowls to 4 or 5.

1 lb lamb stew meat (cut from shoulder or breast is best)
optionally: lamb bones if you want to make a very rich broth
1 medium yellow onion, diced
3 cloves
1 medium thick leek, cleaned, slit in half and then chopped
2 medium or 1 large carrot, peeled and cut into very thin disks
1 small rutabaga (this is going to most of the flavor so don't omit it), peeled and cut into bite-sized pieces
1/3 cup pearl barley
Salt and Pepper
Optionally, which means not traditionally because the Scots don't spice anything, 1 tsp ground cumin, broken piece of star anise and a pinch of ginger.

Put the lamb, onion and cloves into a medium size soup pot or heavy gauge lidded pot, cover with water, bring to a boil, cover and reduce heat to low. Cook for 1/2 hour, then skim off the foam and impurities. Cook another 15 minutes and skim off any additional foam and fat.

Add the leek, carrots and rutabaga with optional spices. Cook over low heat another 30 minutes.
At this point, you can stop and refrigerate until the next day or two. At this point also, remove any lamb bones you used.

Add barley, at least 1 tsp salt and freshly ground black pepper to your taste. Cover and cook 30 minutes or until barley is tender. Serve piping hot.

NOTE: you can also put all ingredients but the barley in a slow cooker and forget about them for hours, then add barley 30 minutes before you want to eat.

Leeks, being soft and not pushy, make a fabulous silent partner for mushrooms in an omelet or a risotto.
They're terrific with ham in a quiche or omelet.

And here's a big winner: Leek Fritters, supposedly a Bulgarian recipe:

 serves 4

3 lg leeks, white and light green parts only

1 tbsp fresh chives, minced

1 tbsp freshly chopped dill

1 egg, beaten

1/3 cup dried breadcrumbs

1/2 tsp coarse sea salt

freshly ground black pepper to your taste

2 tbsp corn or canola oil for frying

1 lemon

Cut the leeks in half lengthwise and crosswise and rinse to clean.

Put leeks in a large saucepan, cover with water and bring to a boil.

Lower heat to simmer and cook uncovered about 25 minutes, until leeks are soft.

Drain well. Wrap leeks in a heavy towel to squeeze out as much excess water as possible.

Coarsely chop the leeks. Put in a bowl with the chives, dill, salt and pepper. Stir in breadcrumbs. (Enough to take up any remaining moisture in the leeks.) Blend in the egg. 

Make patties that are about ½ inch thick.

In a large nonstick skillet, heat the oil over medium heat. Arrange the patties in the pan so they don’t touch (you may have to do this in two batches) and cook until brown on the bottom side, about 2 minutes. Flip and cook another 1-2 minutes so both sides are evenly browned. Remove from the pan and drain on paper towels.

Serve with a squirt of lemon juice and a wedge of lemon.

Garnish with chopped flat leaf parsley

Can be served warm or at room temperature. 

The book, How to Fix a Leek... has a wonderful recipe for leeks with fresh salmon that I won't repeat here. And finally the first edition of that book had this great vegetable recipe:

Persian Braised Leeks for 4

8 leeks 1" in diameter

1/4 c olive oil

1 med onion, halved and sliced into thin rings

3 tbsp chopped fresh dill (almost 1/4 cup)

2 tomatoes, seeded and chopped

1 c vegetable or chicken broth

3 tbsp freshly squeeze lemon juice (almost 1/4 cup)

salt and freshly ground black pepper to your taste

Cut root ends off leeks, also the green tops 2" above the white stem. Slit each 2/3 lengthwise (leaving 1" at the base) and run under warm water to clean.  Heat oil in a large skillet. Add onion and saute until soft. Add leeks keeping them parallel and carefully coating them in the oil. Add everything else. Cover and simmer 20 minutes until leeks are tender. Arrange on a serving dish, pour the juices over the top and serve warm or at room temperature.