So I haven’t posted in a while thanks to being infected with what I lovingly refer to as the plague. No, it wasn’t really the plague but to me it felt like I should just crawl into bed and say my last goodbyes because I had a horrible case of the stomach flu.
This… my friends…is a food bloggers worst nightmare.
I didn’t want to think of food. Smell food. Dream of food. Be offered food. Nothing. I couldn’t even eat ice chips and manage to stay happy. But, yesterday, still feeling as if I’d fought a good fight and every last ounce of my energy was drained, I got out of bed, did the dishes, did the laundry and put lunch in the crock pot, which I will get to in a later post. Needless to say, lunch became dinner and we had mashed potatoes left over.
I was watching my girlfriend peel potatoes as I cut them up and I was like, ‘Uh, we’re feeding three people, not ten. I think that’s enough potatoes.’ So then we had the debate of left over potatoes, how she’d take some to work, yadda, yadda, yadda…
See, I got all kinds of crazy a couple months ago when I realized how many leftovers we were throwing away and I finally put my foot down and said I wasn’t going to be cooking until there were no leftovers.
Anyway, no one eats leftover mashed potatoes in this house. So today, I’m making a mashed potato soup, and my version is going to be bland so that I can eat it, but I’m going to tell you how I make my potato soup so you can jazz it up to where its supposed to be and not have the sick food bloggers choice of ‘easy foods’ while her tummy gets better.
Ingredients for my Mild Version
2 C mashed potatoes
3/4 C milk
1/4 C heavy cream
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp black pepper
dash of salt
Ingredients for My Normal Version
2 C mashed potatoes
1 leek, diced
2 tbsp butter
1/4 C milk
1/2 C Chicken Broth
1/4 C heavy cream
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp black pepper
dash of salt
If you have left over mashed potatoes, this is what we’re working with, and the recipe works for potatoes which have been whipped or even left lumpy. Either or. However, do be aware if you have lumpy potatoes, you’ll have to decrease your liquid amount so that it doesn’t come out really runny. If for any reason you find that you’ve made your soup too runny and you have some instant potatoes on hand, add a tsp to help thicken it up. There’s no shame in correcting things, not to mention, you’re not likely to have leftovers with this soup!
So first things first, we’re going to peel off the outer couple layers of the leek if you’re doing the jazzed up version of mashed potato soup. I know that the leeks I get at the store are always double dirty, so I’ll peel until I don’t have to worry about slicing up some dirt from who knows where and tossing it into my soup. A leek is like a giant green onion though milder in flavor and we don’t cut up all the green. We cut up only the tender white part and the white transitioning into the green part. It should be soft, not like the tough green of the end leaves. I cut my leek in half like splitting a log, then I dice those halves.
Next, we put our two tbsp butter in a pot, heat it up to melt it, and we throw in the leek and saute until its nice and tender and mostly translucent. I’m sorry, since I’m on the whole ‘I’m sick’ thing, my bland soup has no leek and therefore, I have no picture, but trust me, you can do this!
Once our leek is nice and cooked, we’re going to add the chicken broth and our leftover potatoes and we’re going to simmer this, nice and slow and low so that we can give those potatoes some of that flavor infusion. Give this about 15 minutes. I did not add chicken broth to my bland soup because I find that anything meaty, in my condition, doesn’t settle well, but cooking my potatoes (if I use fresh raw ones and not leftovers), in chicken broth, gives it a certain wow factor! I also cook my vegetables for other soups in chicken broth rather than water. Who doesn’t want that extra layer of flavor?
Next, we add our seasonings, cream and milk and stir it in well, simmer until it’s nice and hot, assuming you’re adding cold milk and cream, so another 15-20 minutes.
Then you dish out your finished potato soup, top it with some shredded cheese and some chopped up, cooked bacon if you want, and now you have a delicious little meal to use those poor, lonesome mashed potatoes for! And I do promise, once I cut up a leek and so on, I will provide you more pictures!