We are, according to the media, right smack dab in the middle of one of the worst winter storms to hit our area in a long time. Dire warnings have been popping up all over the news over the past few days, and I have received countless emails from various city departments and sites reminding me to avoid downed power lines, telling me where I might be able to purchase sand bags (yes, really), and imploring me to please stay off the road and avoid the deluge.
Alas, Stormageddon, as I have affectionately nicknamed this particular burst of weather, has so far been a big bust in my city. There’s been rain, yes, and wind, but it’s nothing we haven’t seen before, and nothing at all like what we were expecting. Although to be fair, it has wreaked havoc all over the San Francisco region, so I suppose there was reason for *some* people to have a teensy amount of panic. Just…not as much as the media would really, really like us to believe. Yes, I know.
Lack of actual storminess of the storm aside, it’s definitely been a cold and dreary day – the perfect day for soup. Potato Cheese Soup, to be exact.
This is not a complicated recipe. Really, it’s more of a rough guideline to making soup, suitable for tweaking to meet anyone’s specific palette.
You start with a bunch of potatoes. The number depends on how many people you’re trying to feed, and/or how much soup you want to have as leftovers (it reheats well, so we always, always aim for leftovers). Peel them and chop them into large chunks and toss them into a big pot. Then do the same with some carrots. Again, the number is up to you, although the dominant focus of this soup is the specific texture and flavor of the potato, so you don’t want your non-potato parts to overwhelm the potato parts.
Toss in one onion (peeled and cut into quarters). No matter how big a batch, I always use only one onion, although if you’ve a mind to, feel free to use more.
At this point I usually stop, although now would be a good time to also throw in any other random root vegetables of the sort that are not going to overwhelm the soup. This is a perfect place to hide leftover sweet potatoes, or turnips, or rutabagas. You can also add celery, but I recommend chopping it up small, as no one wants to be pulling nasty celery strings from their teeth. I add it, or not, depending on whether there’s any in the fridge.
Add in some water – not enough to cover all the chopped up veggies, but enough so that they won’t burn. I usually start with 2 cups and then add more depending on how full my pot is. If you prefer broth, you can use that instead, but it’ll taste just fine with plain water if you’ve no broth at hand.
Cover the pot, bring to a boil, and then simmer about half an hour, or until everything is nice and soft. Remove it from the heat, and then blend everything together until it’s silky smooth. If it’s too thick, feel free to add a little additional water to thin things out.
Now comes the fun part. Stir in some cheddar cheese. This is where, if you are a parent with picky children, you can get sneaky, and blame the orange color of the soup on the cheese and not on the carrots (since once it’s all blended up, you shouldn’t be able to taste the carrots anyway). Start with 2-4 ounces of cheese, but feel free to add as much or as little as you want. I suppose you could also have fun with different varieties of cheese, should you so desire. We are purists, however, and stick to the cheddar.
Stir the soup until the cheese is completely melted. Salt and pepper to taste. Scoop up a big bowl and eat it while curled up on the sofa under a blanket, listening to the rain outside.
‘Tis the season for Holidailies.
