Creamy Cheese Potato Soup

So apparently winter is not over. I'm more okay with it than a lot of people. I like to believe that this is because I'm flexible and adaptable and a good sport about stuff. In reality it's because I think I might start to cry if I have to start weeding again (those weeds really gave me a butt-kicking last year). 

My own sad laziness aside, there's plenty to love about winter. Only this morning, my sweet Emma said, "Mom, the snow is sparkling." As indeed it was. Then there's our wood-burner, which I'm planning to marry if anything happens to Kip. And soup. There's always soup. 

I really like potato soup. Kip, however, is usually pretty meh about it. So I've tried jazzing it up in a bunch of different ways (bacon, people, bacon), and he eats it and he's fine with it, but until I prepared this super easy, creamy soup for our Christmas party, I hadn't really found one that made him call dibs on the leftovers. The best news is that this is the easiest of the lot. There's not even a roux. You boil potatoes (and a bit of onion) in chicken broth. You add cream cheese and a bit of cream. And then some salt and pepper if you need it. You mash it up, so that it's in little chunks, not big ones. And you're done. Yeah. It sounds too easy right. Bland. Boring. Nope. It's really very delicious. And if you are a bit more daring than my husband (doesn't take too much in the food department), it provides the perfect (truly perfect) canvas for you to go all rogue. You can add kale or spinach, colorful peppers, carrots, corn, sweet paprika, onions. Crazy kinds of cheese. And I think we all know that there's always room for bacon. But if you want to keep it completely simple you can and not be embarrassed to serve it to guests. Also, I haven't tried it yet, but I'm 99% sure that this would be a cinch in the crock pot as well, since it's already a throw-it-all-in recipe. 

We had it with this bread and garnished it with a bit of cheese. 

Creamy Potato Soup

adapted from Rose Bakes

Prep time: 15 minutes

Cook time: 1 hour

Serves:  a lot of people. I usually halve it, but as is, it should serve 12-16 people

Cost: $7.00 (or about $.50/serving)

potatoes: 3.00, broth: 1.00 (this is for cubes or granules), onion: .05, cream cheese: 2.00, whipping cream: 1.00

10-12 C chicken broth

6 lb red potatoes, peeled and diced

1/4 C onion, finely diced

1/2-1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

2 8-oz blocks of cream cheese

1 C whipping cream

salt and pepper to taste

Heat your broth while peeling and cutting your potatoes and onion (you can also use onion powder if you or a loved one suffer from pieces-of-onion-aversion-intolerance-syndrome). Add salt and pepper to broth. (I'd start with only 1/2 tsp salt and add more later if you need more.)

Throw the potatoes and onion in the broth and let it boil gently until the potatoes are soft. 

Mash the potatoes. You can make it smoother or chunkier depending on your preferences (and whether or not you or your loved ones suffer from low-chunky-tolerance-disorder--or LCTD for short--or not). 

Add the cream cheese (cut it up if you'd like--it makes it a little easier to incorporate). Stir it into the potatoes until it's smooth and incorporated. Add cream. 

Simmer this soup for 20-30 more minutes, stirring occasionally (so it doesn't stick to the bottom of your pot). 

Taste and adjust seasonings. 

Garnish with cheese, green onions, bacon bits, or whatever you like. 

PRINTABLE RECIPE

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