Cooking with Dr. Monkey

It's been colder than Christian charity here for the past few days and I wanted something warm and brothy for supper, so I made us some soup and hummus last night. The soup I made is an Irish cabbage and potato soup called Colcannon and I found the recipe in an issue of Cooking Light magazine a few years ago. The hummus recipe I use is based on one of Dr. Andrew Weil's recipes.

Ready? Ok! Let's cook. I started off by peeling these five potatoes and then I chopped them in to small cubes and I put them on to boil. I boiled them in two cups of chicken broth. Earlier in the day I had chopped up a leek and I let it sit in water so that the dirt in the leek would leech out. As my potatoes boiled I put the chopped leek in a big stock pot along with two table spoons of cracked black pepper, some thyme, three table spoons of a yogurt based butter substitute, three chopped cloves of garlic, and a third of a cup of white wine.
As the leek and potatoes cooked in separate pans I finely chopped up half a head of savoy cabbage. Then I tossed it in the stock pot with the leek. After my potatoes got fork tender I poured half of them along with some broth in the food processor and I pulsed all that until it was a grainy liquid. I then poured that in with the leek and cabbage. Next I added the rest of the potatoes and about two more cups water.
I let it all simmer for about 30 to 45 minutes.

As my Colcannon simmered I made my hummus.I started by heating up a can of chick peas to which I added some chopped garlic, a table spoon of black pepper, and the juice and zest of one half of a lemon. When all that had cooked for a few minutes I put it in the food processor and I pulsed the living hell out of it until it was reasonably smooth.
Next I added 3/4 cup of tahini and a few good glugs of olive oil and I pulsed it some more.
That's what it looked like in the food processor. And that's what it looked like in the serving bowl. After my soup had simmered enough I doled out two bowls full and I heated up some flat bread. Then I served it all up with a side of cherry tomatoes.
Let's eat!