Today was ugly.  It was cold, and windy, and dark, and rainy.  And a work day.  What could combat the damp cold leeching into my soul?  Without a doubt, Potato Soup.  But I’ve never made Potato Soup, what to do?  Having eaten my share of potatoes and soup, often combined, I decided to wing it.  First, I needed to decide what I was going for: Cream of Potato Soup with Bacon.  Oh yes, it was on!

I had to gather ingredients, not really knowing how much i would need.  Potatoes, obviously.  Five of them, because that’s how many I had left at home.  Besides those delicious spuds, I’d need some vegetable stock, a pint of heavy cream, carrots, green onions, and a few slices of bacon.  And the experiment commenced…

Ingredients:

• 5 white potatoes,cubed
• 1 large carrot, diced
• 1/4 cup green onions (scallions)
• 4 cups vegetable stock, low-sodium
• 4 slices of lean bacon
• 2 tsp black pepper
• 1 cup heavy cream

Now you could use chicken stock, or even water, instead of the veggie stock.  You could leave out the bacon for a vegetarian version.  Hold on…let me recover from typing that last sentence.  Okay, I’m fine.  You could substitute milk or some other dairy for the heavy cream.  These substitutions will change the result, but I think it will still come out alright as long as you adjust the spices.

I like chunky potato soup, so I cubed the potatoes rather haphazardly.  Then I diced up a carrot as small as I could without losing a finger.  I chopped green onions until the little pile looked big enough.  It all went into the pot, and I poured in the stock.  It took 3 cups to just cover the veggies, and then I added one more cup for good measure.

I turned up the burner to medium-high and put a cover on it.  Soon it was boiling, and I turned the heat down slightly.

While the veggies were cooking, I fried up some bacon.  I had the bright idea to cut up the bacon before frying it, which I wouldn’t recommend.  It would have been much easier to cook it and then just crumble it.  In the end, it worked out and I had some nice crisp bacon bits.

I moved them to some paper towels to soak up some of the fat, and then threw them into the veggie pot.  I also added some black pepper.  My Mom used to make potato soup with black pepper, and I still like that taste a lot.  The veggies are done when you can stick a fork into them easily–somewhere around 15 minutes.  I cooked them a bit longer, about 20 minutes, to really get the potatoes mushy.  The potatoes were lending their starch to the stock, and the soup had thickened considerably,.  I smashed some of the potato chunks against the sides of the pot with my spoon to give the soup some more body, but left plenty of nice chunks.

I turned off the heat and stirred in a cup of heavy cream, which really smoothed it out, and had a taste.  Now it’s possible that my taste buds were just desperate for the warm embrace of potatoes, but let me tell you…it was perfection.  In my giddiness, I forgot all about taking a picture of the finished pot and poured some into a bowl.  A quick garnish of a crusty slice of Asiago bread and some reserved bacon bits, a few camera snaps, and down the hatch.

What weather?