homemade creamy potato soup and optionals

[werecat]

I have always thought of soups as easy. I am just realizing that just because I do things and they are easy doesn’t mean it’s easy for anyone else. Please forgive me for the way this recipe is written, but there really are no specific measurements for most of the ingredients.

Creamy Potato Soup

In a nice large heavy bottom soup pot

• melt a stick of butter (margarine if you must, but at least make it good margarine. if you shop at Aldi, the butter isn’t that expensive and it tastes much better.)
• Add 1 medium to large onion chopped (white or yellow, whatever was on sale or that the food pantry gave you is fine)
• 2 nice ribs of celery diced relatively fine (if you end up having to purchase a whole head of celery, make sure if it’s not something you use very often dice it up and freeze in smaller bag for future use)
• and a tablespoon or so of minced garlic (you can normally get jars of minced garlic @ Dollar Tree stores for really cheap)

sauté on low with a couple of pinches of sea salt and cracked pepper to taste. While that is doing it’s thing, peel and dice a couple of pounds of potatoes. For my family I normally do between 2 and 3 lbs of white potatoes (cheap and cheerful from Aldi). When the celery, onions and garlic are done add your diced up potatoes to the pot and measure how much water it takes to just cover. Remember this amount it’s important. Turn the heat up and boil to cook potatoes till done. Fork tender and mash-able. Now, remember how much water you added? Right, add that much in evaporated milk in the cans. round up or down as needed so you don’t waste anything. Get out your masher and mash the potatoes. Some people use a stick blender and make it totally smooth, but I personally like a few chunks. If it’s a bit thin for your taste, add some potato flakes, if you want it thinner, add a bit more evaporated or regular milk. Taste. add more salt and pepper to taste.

Now for the optional ingredients: leeks may be substituted for all or part of the onions, add grated Colby cheese to taste, diced ham, sea food, bacon, snipped chives, grated carrots or broccoli stems. this soup recipe makes a good basis for all sorts of variations depending on what you have in the fridge.

Serve in a bread bowl or with biscuits or croutons and enjoy. Now take my notes and go make your own perfect bowl for your family. 🙂

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