Leek and Potato Soup

Some days I just feel like soup.  Today there is a chill in the air...the windows are wide open.  The day just screams SOUP!.  After looking around the kitchen pantry...and finding no cans of soup...I figured we were out of luck.  But then I remembered a soup I had a few months back...leek soup.  And I just picked up some leeks from the local farm down the street. 
After a few minutes looking through recipes and digging through the pantry and fridge to figure out how to make my soup dream become a reality...I came up with the following recipe. 

Ingredients:
1 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
3 pieces of bacon - chopped (you can leave this out if you want to make a vegetarian soup)
2 Leeks, white and light green parts, washed and sliced into 1/4 inch slices
1 small yellow onion - chopped
1/2 tsp sea salt
4 cloves garlic - minced
1 bay leaf
1 lbs Yukon Gold potatoes, wash and cubed
4 cups vegetable stock (or you can use chicken stock)
2 tsp rosemary leaves

directions:
Heat a large soup pot over medium heat and add oil
Add bacon.  Cook until soft and most of the fat is rendered (do not cook til crispy)
Add the leeks, onions and sea salt.    Saute for 5 minutes, stirring often.  Until the onions soften and turn translucent.
Add the garlic and bay leaf.  Stir well.  Cook for 1 more minute
Add the potatoes and vegetable stock.  Stir together.  Cover and bring to a boil
Reduce heat to med-low to simmer.
Cook for 20 minutes
Remove the soup from the heat.
Ladle about 1/2 of the soup into a food processor. 
Add rosemary.
Blend until smooth.
Add the smooth soup back into the chunky soup. 
Warm over low heat until heated through.
Serve hot.

Now you can continue to blend all of the soup, until it is all creamy...but I like some of the chunkiness of the potatoes and leeks.

Hope you enjoy this fall soup.