Baked Potato Soup

Baked Potato Soup 4^th soup

Wow it has been over a week since I made a soup, at this rate I will be making soup for the next year and a half…..

Baked Potato Soup

This soup was like eating the best mashed potatoes you ever ate…        Again, I need to work on better preparation; I had to run to the store in the middle of creating the soup and I needed the help of my family for chopping and preparing the soup, but I guess that is the fun of it.

I did read the ingredients but I never read the directions, even the first sentence I would of read preheat oven at 425, hence the name Baked Potato Soup.  So we improvised and boiled the potatoes, everything else went rather smoothly. And yes it was the best bowl of potato soup I ever ate we even created a potaoe bar with sour cream bacon bits, cheese and extra dill. Here is the recipe; I want to try to make it with baked potatoes sometime just to see if there is a big difference                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     Baked Potato Soup

Prep 35 Min Bake 40 min Oven 425F

2 Large baking Potatoes (about 8 oz each)

3 Tab Butter

6 Tab  thinly sliced green onions (3)

3 tab all-purpose flour

2 tea snipped f  resh dill or chives or ¼ tea dried dill

¼ teas salt

¼ teas ground black pepper

4cups milk

1 ¼ cups shredded American cheese

4 slices of Bacon Crisp drained and crumbled

Preheat oven to 425 F Scrub potatoes with a vegetable brush, pat dry. Prick potatoes several times with a fork. Bake for 40 to 60 Min or until tender, cool. Cut potatoes in half lengthwise, gently scoop out pulp, breaking up any large pieces. Discard potato skins( or you can bake them like I did and crumble them on top of the soup)

In a large saucepan heat butter over medium heat until melted. Add 3 Tablespoons of the green onions cook and stir until tender. Stir in flour, dill, salt and pepper. Gradually stir in milk. Cook and stir for 12 to 15 minutes or until thickened and bubbly. Add potato pulp and 1 cup of the cheese, stirring until cheese is melted. Ladle soup in bowls and top with cheese and bacon…. Best Soup Ever

All American Cheeseburger Soup

Getting Prepared

3rd Soup American Cheeseburger Soup, and you can see I really got myself prepared to create this recipe, that is the biggest thing that I have learned,prepare, read the entire recipe understand what you are about to do, that way it goes smoothly and a lot less surprises. Then I took the time to take out all of my ingredients and measure them out and chopped the onion, garlic and the celery. That made the cooking go a lot smoother, no running around like a crazy person.  Now to the recipe, this is a really good soup, especially for people like my son Ryan’s girlfriend Marisa, she’s very basic meat and potatoes or should I say a real Wendy’s girl. This soup was very basic, hamburger, cheese, and tomatoes. The only thing I would change is there was ¼ cup ketchup added to the soup at the end and I was not a fan of the flavor, it kind of overtook the soup, the cheese flavor was good, not really strong but you could really but any kind of cheese in it that you liked on a cheeseburger. Otherwise it was a great soup and again the next day and the next day it was even better, it made 8 nice size servings and it was a good soup.

Creamy Coconut-Lime Soup

2^nd soup, Creamy Coconut-lime Soup, this was a soup that looked easy to prepare, and it was, but it took 2 hours to find Thai Seasoning. After I Googled it, I found out everyone was looking for it, that lots of people had found the recipes and since McCormick’s stopped making it, it was lost. Till I called The Weis Market, and a wonderful manager, found it.They had a brand called The Spice Hunter. It was just a little over 5 dollars,. Another problem is where we found the roasted chicken it was really hard to tell how much the chicken weighed… So I think we overdid the chicken.. What was really cool was I had never used Coconut milk in anything before, so I was excited to try it and see what happened.. We used way to much chicken and I think that is why it was so bland. But again with the next day, we seasoned it with the Thai Seasoning and it was really good. But I do think this soup is just a matter of taste, some people liked it and others thought it was just ok. As for me this adventure is really expanding my cooking, it has taken me away from the basic meat and potatoes cooking, and re-heating in the microwave. I am amazing myself, I was more prepared (believe or not) than I was with the first recipe.  I am already learning a lot about cooking through the mistakes I make. And I am having lots of fun, but mostly I am taking cooking a little more seriously. Also everyone, is part of it , even my little nine-year old granddaughter, Trinity was cutting carrots and pulling chicken off the bone. This cooking soup might be the perfect thing for families

Three-Cheese Beer Soup

First Soup, Three Cheese Beer Soup, the recipe said from start to finish it should take 45 Minutes;  I read over the recipe and purchased everything (I thought.)  It was very simple following the directions, but then I realized that I forgot frozen hash brown potatoes, I decided to make my own, I am not sure if this was the reason we thought we needed more potatoes. When it came to the part where I was to add the beer, I only had one beer in the refrigerator it was given to me by my friend Chris for Christmas because it had a cow on it and it was an Ale beer, I poured it in and the smell was awful, so I only used half the beer, if I would have done a little more research, I would have just used beer from a local Micro brewery .  The smell of the beer is what got me,I panicked in fear of spoiling the soup. They also said you should use 10 strips of bacon, fried and cut in small pieces.. As we were eating it, I think for the first time in my son Ryan’s life he said “I think that there is too much bacon in this”. Everyone liked the soup, the smell of the Ale beer kind of took away from the meal. I think I need to be better prepared, I thought I had bacon, but I didn’t so I had to get bacon in the middle of cooking,  I also did not have the potatoes that was called for in the recipe. Also I  need a place to put my magazine; it is so messed up from food it looks as if it was truly part of the recipe… The best part of the soup was the next day, it was the best soup we ever ate, it no longer had the pungent smell of Ale beer the bacon had also calmed down, but we still thought the soup needed more potatoes but maybe if I would have used frozen hash brown potatoes it would have been enough. The cheeses ,2 kinds of cheddar and Romano were great, along with the heavy cream, it was a very creamy wonderful soup.. Only suggestion, make the soup and eat it the next day with crusty French bread.. AND DRINK THE BEER

Cooking soup

I picked up the Better Homes and Garden Magazine on New Year’s Eve 2011 …I had been into soups for a while and was getting tired of going over to the Bagel Place every day not knowing what was really in the soup and who was handling it… So I started buying Mrs. Grass soup mix, but that is high in sodium…. My mother had always made soup so it is sort of a comfort food for me now that she has passed away so as I was browsing the magazines waiting to go through the grocery line, I decided to pick it up. I read it New Year’s Eve as if it were a Nora Roberts Novel, and the next day New Years as my husband and I were going over the past year’s accomplishments and the promising the next year we would do this and that, I started telling him about the Magazine I purchased.. I told him I was going to start cooking soup, and the next thing you know, I felt like the girl from Julia, and I said that I was going to make every soup in the magazine. Clarence being the crazy support any idea that comes out of my mouth person, quickly jumped on board.. So that is what I am going to do I am going to make every soup in The Better Homes and Garden Soup Magazine.  Not like Julia, not a soup a day but I am going to make them one right after another. 137 recipes… I have no idea why I am doing this or even why I thought of it, but I have never been so full of determination to complete something…So here I go and wish me luck.