My wife says I can never just go with the flow, constantly tweaking things about the house (especially furniture!) or wanting to add a little something to time honoured family recipes.
Tonight we both had a bit of a hankering for Potato Soup, but as they say while the cat’s away the mouse will play… My wife headed upstairs to have a wee nap and I started with the potato peeler. Somewhere between dicing spuds and cutting up the hama brain wave hit me (around here they are known for coming from the other end…) – if Russets make a fine Potato Soup, imagine what two different types of potatoes would do?
Now just last week our local Beatles fan had given us some wonderful organic Sweet Potatoes and after a mighty feed of Baked Sweet Potato Fries there were still a couple left in the potato bin. Well you know what happened next… Darned if a cubed Sweet Potato didn’t happen to fall into the pot of boiling potatoes.
And as chance would have it a half dozen Baby Carrots also fell into the pot. I was on a roll!
The long and short of it was a sweeter variation on the classic Potato Soup, slightly thicker in consistency, that by the looks of the wee Tupperware container in the fridge went over well at the dinner table…
Here then is my variation on classic Potato Soup.
1-Potato 2-Potato Soup
Ingredients:
- 1/2 lb bacon (or ham)
- 1/2 large onion diced
- 5 – 6 medium to large potatoes
- 1 medium to large sweet potato
- 6 Baby or two regular sized carrots
- 1 can chicken stock
- 6 c water
- 1/2 cup cream
Preparation:
- Dice the bacon into about 3/8 inch pieces.
- Put your soup pot onto the stove with a dash of oil and heat to medium high.
- Add the bacon to the pot and stir as it starts to brown.
- When half browned add the diced onion, cover and continue browning.
- While the bacon and onion are browning peel and cut up the potatoes, sweet potato and carrots into medium chunks (no need to be fancy about it).
- Once the bacon and onion have browned and are a bit crispy remove from the pot and set aside in a covered bowl.
- Now for the fun part. Add about a 1/4 cup of the water to the soup pot and deglaze the bottom so you won’t lose any of the goodness baked onto the pot.
- Once deglazed add the rest of the water and the cutup potatoes, sweet potatoes and carrots, cover and bring to a boil just as if you were making mashed potatoes (which is what you are doing…).
- When the potatoes, sweet potato and carrots have boiled and mashable either remove them from the water (save the water!) and whir up in the food processor or else if you have one of those Braun hand mixers, whir them up right in the pot.
- Add the chicken stock and return to a simmer.
- The soup is basically ready and can sit simmering for another hour or two if need be (watch your water levels!).
- Just before you serve the soup add the cream and blend in to make a richer tasting soup.
- Serve with the reserved bacon and onion as a topping or garnish.
- Makes about 6 – 8 servings and can be doubled, trebled or zillionth if you like.