Cauliflower Leek and Chicken Soup with Rosemary-Parmesan Crackers

I made my own crackers today. And my own soup.

The soup - cauliflower, leek and chicken - was quite nice. Pleasantly oniony, with lots of cauliflower and chicken and a tiny hint of lemon. (I don't generally like lemon in chicken soup, but I cut down the amount the recipe asked for and liked it here.) This was the first time I'd used leeks, and I quite liked them, but I was annoyed to throw so much of them away. What's the sense in so much (inedible?) greenery?

The crackers were nice too, but the the texture was a little bit off. I think they had too much cheese and not enough flour, so they didn't get that sort of flaky texture. Or maybe I over-worked it. I don't know. (I don't think I did, since I barely did anything with it at all - just stirred it until it made a ball and then rolled it into logs, chilled it, sliced it and baked it.) Maybe I used the wrong sort of cheese. They were meant to have Asiago, but I had a nice Parmesan (can't spell it the proper way off-hand...) so I used that instead and maybe it was the wrong hardness or something. Anyway, they do still taste pretty good, even if they've got the wrong mouthfeel for a cracker.

I really hate that black bowl. It's actually my sister's but it's the only bowl we've got that's shallow enough for photographing soups when you want all the chunky bits to show up. (The rest of the bowls you mostly get to see broth and little hints of what's inside.) It always looks dirty in pictures, though, even when it's clean and it catches the light in all the worst ways and broth looks dirty with that black underneath it, rather than just like pale broth.