Soup Weather

We finally got some snow. Being that it has passed the middle of January it's about time we did. It was disappointing though. It was stupid snow.

There is a range of snowfall that qualifies as stupid. To simplify matters snow that doesn't cause a snow day is stupid snow. Snow that causes a two hour school delay is borderline stupid. Snow that falls and doesn't stick is just annoying. Snow that makes you wait two months for it's arrival and is only one inch tall is stupid and annoying. And, by the way, it all melted off the roadway in short time because of the assinine unseasonably warm temperatures we've been having.

On Saturday we had some seriously windy weather. It made for a very cold day, finally. After coming in and out of the cold and reading Claudia's blog about her love of potatoes I was overwhelmed with a need for Potato Soup. It's so good I even eat it in the summer but it really is the perfect thing on a freezing cold day. 

I got the recipe from The New Laurel's Kitchen and it's yummy. The recipe was too small for the crowd I feed and I am completely incapable of leaving any recipe alone so I made some other changes too.

Laurel calls for four potatoes, two carrots, an onion and a clove or two of garlic, milk, and cheddar cheese. The recipe has you saute the garlic and onions separately and add them later. I didn't understand the value in doing it that way; it just makes for more dishes to wash. So I just dice up the onions (one large or two small) and five or so cloves of garlic and saute them in about a tablespoon of olive oil right in the soup pot.

I cook them on a medium to low flame so they brown nicely and I cook the onions first and throw the garlic in when the onions are just starting to brown. Sometimes I add a chopped up leek at this point.  Then I add ten to twelve potatoes, four carrots and two to four parsnips if I have them if not I just leave the parsnips out.

Chop all the vegetables up and add to the pot. I usually chop the carrots to about half the size of the potato pieces so they will cook faster and be done about the same time. Then add water, or broth if you want, enough to just cover the vegetables. Bring to a boil and then lower heat to simmer until the potatoes fall apart and the carrots fall off the fork with which you stab them.

I bought an immersion blender just to make this soup, if you don't have one then you need to transfer the vegetables and some broth to a blender in batches and puree the soup that way. It will make your life easier if you have a separate pot to pour the puree into. This is where the milk comes in. If you find the mixture too thick to blend then add some milk. I've made this many times with both soy milk and regular milk, either way it comes out fine. Once it's all pureed you'll need to heat it through and add the cheese. I use extra-sharp cheddar and I use a lot of it. Shred the cheese and stir it into the soup.

Don't let the soup boil, just heat it until the cheese melts. Add some salt, it needs salt, and pepper if you like. I also add about a teaspoon of dried dill weed.

As with so many other things, this soup is even better the next day. I don't know if it freezes well or not, I've never had enough left over to freeze and what is left over gets eaten for lunch the next day or so.

Bon Appetit!