time to cook those veggies: potato soup

potato soup. ray does not mind that i sometimes spend a little extra money on food, as long as we eat it and it does not go to waste. so for the next week i will be concentrating on cooking and eating all those lovely veggies we got at the farmers market this weekend. first on the stove...potato soup. now i like my potato soup with lots of chunky veggies in it and i don't worry about getting a really smooth and creamy base. i try to keep it simple, rustic, and tasty. so here is it is folks, my potato soup. (sorry the pics really suck...oh well)

potato soup

potatoes, cut up, skin on ( i used small white and red potatoes)
onion, cut up a bit
2 cloves of garlic
head of broccoli
what was left of raw milk cheese, sharp cheddar, grated, about 1/2 - 3/4 cup
milk
butter
5 slices bacon
salt and pepper
thyme

(the white potatoes and broccoli are from yesterday's trip to farmers market. the bacon was purchased at happy cow, but is from caw caw creek. everything else i already had on hand.)

i cut up the potatoes and left the skins on. put them in my soup pot with just enough salted water to cover. i don't put in a lot of water because i want to save and use all the water for the soup base. that way whatever nutrients are boiled out of the potatoes essentially stay in the soup. that's my theory anyway. i also plopped in some cut up broccoli stalks to cook with the potatoes. (since my friend no longer has a pig to feed my scraps to, and i don't have a compose pile yet, i tried to use up all the broccoli.) boil the potatoes and broccoli stalks till soft. in a separate pan saute in butter the cut up onion and garlic. then add the tops of the broccoli that has been cut up a bit. cook till soft. then once the potatoes were done, i put half the potatoes and water, and half the broccoli florets and onions in my food processor and gave it a quick whirl. then put everything back in soup pot. i added some butter (2-3 tbs.), a bit of milk (1/2 cup or so), and the cheese. i then cooked the bacon in a pan till crisp. chopped it up and threw that in the soup pot as well (i saved a little bacon for garnish). got some thyme from the garden and tossed that in to. also i took just a bit of the bacon grease and added that as well. but not much. just a bit. salt and pepper to taste. and that was it. yummy.

look!!! i didn't forget the onion. (ray even yelled from the bathroom as i was starting..."don't forget the onion!!!")

potatoes and broccoli stalks to the right. butter, onions, broccoli tops, and garlic to the left.

finished. minus the two bowls that we ate before the picture was taken.
kind of looks like baby mush in the picture.

lunch. i served the soup in these handled bowls that ray's parents bought us to make french onion soup in. fun.

the one thing that i really hate about cooking....cleaning. and i am a messy cook. however, today i discovered that my ipod fits nicely into the pocket of my apron. cleaning is not nearly as bad when you have the lovely voice of allison krauss lulling in your ears. plus i was on a culinary high from ray telling me that he really liked my soup. why have i not thought of this before? it really beats the football noise coming from the t.v.

dirty dirty kitchen!!