From potée to soupe

The second time we ate some of the potée, 2 days later (see yesterday's post), I decided to transform it into something that didn't much resemble a one-pot boiled dinner. I also decided we didn't need to eat the two sausages (Toulouse and à l'ail) that had cooked along with the vegetables, veal roast, and chunk of pork breast. So I put the sausages in the freezer for later, and I started cutting up some of the vegetables into bite-sized chunks. I sauteed those vegetables in some olive oil, and I heated the meats up in the oven. Then I made gravy — une sauce blanche or veloutée — using flour, butter, some of the potée broth, and cream. It was a different kind of lunch. I still had boiled vegetables, including turnips, leeks, parsnips, carrots, celery, and kale, in the fridge.

The third time we ate potée (again 2 days later), I decided to make soup. I had a lot of highly flavored broth left — maybe 2 liters. — and quite a lot of meat and vegetables. Making all that into soup is a time-consuming process, because everything needs to be finely diced.

Being a retired person who doesn't have any obligations outside of the house helps. And I have nearly infinite patience when it comes to working in the kitchen to prepare good food.  It also helps that I don't like to see anything go to waste. And I really believe in planning and preparing the food you plan to eat over the coming days. If you're not prepared or haven't planned, you end up eating... well, just whatever. At least I would.

P.S. Today is Walt's birthday, so we'll be making the traditional steak au poivre for our dinner at noontime.

So here's the soup. Diced potée vegetables, veal, and pork, to which I added some corn and peas (Walt's idea) for color and flavor. And potée broth plus what remained of the gravy/white sauce from a couple of days early, which enriched and thickened the broth just slightly.

We had one more potée meal ahead of us, because there was too much soup to eat at one sitting... More to come.