Even though we both worked until 8pm tonight, Jill and I decided to cook our one Irish meal in honor of St. Patrick's Day. I stopped at the store and got:

• 2 leeks
• 6 gold potatoes
• smoked, peppered mackerel

Making potato-leek soup is fairly easy. We base our recipe on one in the The Frugal Gourmet on Our Immigrant Ancestors, but we substitute milk instead of cream and half the recipe. While I usually make the soup, Jill makes soda bread. In addition to the ingredients above you need a little butter, a cup and a half of milk, some vegetable stock, some spices for flavor, and a little flour.

Start off by washing the leeks well--for some reason, dirt collects inbetween the layers of leek more so than any other vegetable (although artichokes would seem like they would have the same problem). Since you're just going to chop the leeks up, there's no reason not to split 'em in half lengthwise and run each leaf under water, rubbing to get rid of the soil. In a large pot, melt a tablespoon of butter and saute the leeks. While that's starting to cook, get your water on to boil if you have those vegetable stock cubes (tonight I used vegetable stock in a tetrapack). Clean and slice the potatoes and add it to the pot after the leeks have become "clear" (but not browned). Add the milk, two cups of stock (or, like I did tonight, a cup of stock and a cup of water), and the herbs (a little disaster tonight--as I was shaking my "herbs de provence" [we're continental in our spicing] the plastic shaker top popped out and I dumped nearly a quarter of the spice jar into the pot--I was able to clean out the extra, thankfully). Stir and cover, occasionally stirring (say every 10-15 minutes) for about an hour (we usually cook it for the time that it takes for the soda bread to cook).

While you're waiting, have a beer. I love the draught Guinness in the bottles--I think it's even better (smoother, less heavy) than the cans.

About five-to-ten minutes before the hour is up, take a small sauce pan and melt a tablespoon of butter in it. Take a quarter-cup of floor and add it slowly to the butter until it makes a roux. This is one of those steps that once you've got it down, there's nothing to it, but not everyone has the patience for a correct roux. It's a lot of stirring and simply not adding too much flour at once. After you get a roux (looks kind of like a paste), mash the potatoes in the pot (they're going to be pretty mushy anyway), then stir in the roux.

Take the smoked fish, pull off the skin (and I usually clean off the yellow, fatty stuff right underneath it, too), then slice it up finely. Put the soup into bowls and top with the fish (the Frug uses bacon).

It's not necessarily a quick meal, but it's incredibly filling, and it's as Irish as we can get. And it's tasty, which is the real measure of a good meal.