Baked potato soup

Oh, I do love the Fall! Changing leaves, cooler temps and pumpkin everything everywhere! This soup is an old classic that I am sure you and your loved ones will enjoy!

Baked Potato Soup

3-4 large baking potatoes
6 strips bacon
1/2 stick salted butter
3 cups chicken broth
2 cups milk (whole or 2%)
1/3 cup chopped green onion or chives
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese or smoked gouda
1/2 heavy cream
salt and black pepper

Directions:

1. Peel and finely dice two of the potatoes. In a large pot, melt the butter and add the diced potatoes. Sautee over medium heat, allowing the potatoes to sweat for 10 minutes.

2. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Meanwhile, spread the bacon on a wire/cooling wrack and place on a cookie sheet or jelly roll pan (any thin, flat pan with sides). Bake the bacon until crisp and all fat has been rendered. Remove the wire/cooling wrack, leaving the grease filled pan. Chop the bacon.

3. Cut the remaining potatoes into 1 inch cubes (skin on). Add them to the cookie sheet with the bacon grease, coating them well with the grease. Turn the oven up to 400 degrees and roast the potatoes in the grease until crispy and brown.

4. Chop the onion or chives and add to the pot of potatoes and butter. Add a couple of pinches of salt and pepper at this point. Pour in the chicken broth and allow everything to come to a boil. Remove from heat.

**This is the part that can be messy.**

5. In small batches, blend the stock/potato combo until smooth. You can also do this with a hand held blender. When finished, return the puree to the pot and turn the heat on low.

6. Pour in the milk and stir. Next, add the cheese a little at a time until it has melted smoothly into the liquid. Turn off the heat and add the heavy cream. Sprinkle in salt and pepper to taste.

Just before serving, toss in the roasted potatoes and bacon chunks (you thought I forgot about them, didn't you?). They add tons of extra potato flavor and great texture! This should serve 4 hungry lumberjacks or 6 regular people. Some choose to add a little sour cream for garnish and flavor, but I find it a bit of a turn off.

Sunday eats

I don't know about you, but when I was growing up, Sundays were feasting days. There was usually chicken or pot roast and plenty of sides to please even the pickiest crowd. My mother made Sunday cooking look effortless. Somehow all of this amazing food appeared on the table with little to no effort. I now know that I was just not paying enough attention. Sunday meals take tons of planning, shopping and preparation. Last Sunday, my plans to go to church were thwarted by a flat tire, so I stayed home and treated my parents to a good ol' fashioned Sunday feast.

The menu:

Beef roast braised in red wine
Citrusy green beans topped with crunchy fried onion rings
Roasted garlic-herb potatoes


Since I hadn't been planning on making roast, I had to take one out of the freezer and toss it in the microwave to get it defrosting. While the microwave worked it's magic, I got a pan screaming hot and roughly chopped an onion and the rest of the garlic bulb left from the pizza. I took the meat out of the microwave, and cut it into about 5 large pieces. My pan was starting to smoke, so I quickly dredged the meat with flour and tossed them into the hot oil. I just wanted to get some color (and thus more flavor) on all sides of the meat. After everything was browned, I added about a cup of baby carrots, the onion and garlic. I took the briefest moment to listen to everything sizzle (I just love that sound!) before deglazing the pan with 3 cups of warm water (unfortunately I had no beef stock) and about that much red wine. I just wanted to cover the meat with liquid. A few seasonings (S/P, and about 2 Tbs of Mrs. Dash Southwest chipotle seasoning) went in, then I covered the dutch oven and put it in the 400 degree oven for 3 hours. When I checked on it, everything was bubbling nicely, so I lowered the temp to 375 for another hour.

During that last hour of cooking, I heated a pot of oil to 350, and very thinly sliced an onion. I did the typical egg dip/flour dredge routine then plunged the little darlings into the hot oil for a quick fry. I diced a few potatoes and tossed them with melted butter and garlic salt, then they went on a sheet pan and into the oven. Two cans of green beans, 1 Tbs of orange zest and the juice of the orange + a little s/p went into a casserole dish and then into the oven. I drained the fried onions on paper toweling, pulled out the roast and placed it in a bowl so that I could make a pan sauce with the cooking juices. Thanks to the flour from the original searing of the meat, the sauce thicken really well. The green beans came out of the oven first...they just needed to be warmed through. The potatoes were next once they started to get nice and brown. The fried onions were laid to rest atop the green beans. The gravy was poured on top of the meat, and the potatoes were dumped onto a serving platter.

Things moved very quickly at the end, but thanks to good planning, the timing was great...everything was ready at the same time! Woohoo! Sorry there are no pics of the potatoes, I didn't think they were that interesting looking...I mean, we all know what cut up potatoes look like.