Football Saturday Potato Soup

I love soup. It's pretty much the perfect meal...it's filling, can cover most of the food groups, and you can make it very tasty. And the leftovers can be eaten for several days or frozen.
Chilly afternoons in the Fall are made for a crock of soup and football.

We call this blog "Eating right...MOST of the time".  This is not one of those times. But everything's right in moderation, right?  We believe so!

My mom taught me to make a very good basic potato soup when I was younger, and it was quick, too. Shred a few potatoes and some onion, cover with water and cook about 15 minutes til tender, then whisk in milk. I made that version for years until I found the recipe for this one, patterned after one of our favorite restaurants, the Iowa Machine Shed.

Today's ingredients...

2 1/2 pounds potatoes
1 pound bacon
1 onion
1/4 bunch celery
1 quart water
2 TBS chicken base
1 quart milk
1 1/2 sticks butter  (6 ounces)
3/4 cup flour
1 cup whipping cream
1 bunch green onions


Let's start by scrubbing the potatoes clean and dicing them up into fairly large chunks...

Cover them with water and boil for about 10 minutes. While this is happening, cut up the celery and the onion.  I'm really liking using Vidalia onions these days...

And dice up the bacon. The actual recipe only calls for 1/2 pound of bacon, but in my family, if you use less than a pound of bacon, you're a lightweight! NEVER less than a pound!

Crisp up the bacon and drain the fat.

Now it's time for the celery & onions to go into the pot with a little leftover bacon grease and the stick and a half of butter...

When it's melted, add the flour.  Whisk it up to absorb all the flour, making a roux.

Cook it for several minutes while whisking.

Now we will add half of the cooked bacon...

Whisk that up and  add the quart of water and the chicken base. Whisk until it thickens...

Time to add the milk. I prefer whole milk in my soups that call for milk. And this recipe calls for a quart of milk and 1 cup of cream. But my store was out of the 1 cup cartons of cream. I don't plan on using any cream in the near future, so I don't want to buy a quart. Time to improvise! A pint of half & half is half milk and half cream. So, I will add 24 ounces of milk and a pint of half & half to get the same mix! 

Drain off those cooked diced potatoes and carefully add to the soup...

Add a little salt & pepper, whisk it up, and cover and simmer for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Dice up the green onions...

Let's ladle up some creamy potato soup!

Mine is on the left, topped off with LOTS of green onions, some bacon bits, and a few crackers. Jo's is on the right, topped with bacon, green onions, and some shredded cheddar cheese.

Love this soup! It's certainly not "eating right", and it's pretty time-consuming to make, but it's worth the "trip"!