Souper Saturday--Cheesy Potato

Tonight I had to change my soup plans due to another shopping error by Handsome. You would think a grown man...oh, never mind. But I'm just sayin'. So, I had to come up with something using what was already in the house, and decided on Cheesy Potato Soup II by Joan Zaffary, from www.allrecipes.com .

Original recipe:

INGREDIENTS

• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 1/2 cups chopped onions
• 1 1/2 cups chopped celery
• 4 cups water
• 8 potatoes, peeled and cubed
• 15 slices American cheese - broken into pieces
• 4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 2 1/3 cups milk
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

DIRECTIONS

1. Melt the butter in a large pot over medium heat. Saute the onions and celery in the butter for 5 to 10 minutes, or until tender.
2. Stir in the water and potatoes, bring to a boil and then simmer until the potatoes are tender. Add the cheese and stir until melted.
3. In a separate small bowl, combine the flour and the milk and stir well until the flour is mostly dissolved. Pour this into the soup slowly, stirring constantly, until soup has thickened, about 5 minutes. Garnish with the parsley.

My changes:

1. I used chicken broth instead of water
2. When the potatoes were tender, I pureed that whole mixture with a hand blender (kids=no chunks).
3. I prefer not to use processed cheese (American), so I melted 2 Tbsp of butter in a pan, stirred in the flour to make a roux, poured in the milk and whisked until bubbly and thickened (your basic white sauce), then stirred in shredded cheddar (about 1 1/2 cups, maybe) until melted. Then I stirred that into the soup.

If I had thought ahead, I would have reserved the two Tbsp butter for the roux out of the 6 Tbsp used to saute the onions and celery, but since I didn't think of that, I ended up using a whole stick of butter in this soup!

I garnished it with a little cheese and parsley for the photo, but bacon and/or chopped green onions or chives would have been ideal toppings.

Ratings:
Handsome 7 would've like some potato chunks
Me 7
Firstborn 6
Skippy 5
Pinkerbelle 9

Average 6.8

This soup was pretty good; the aforementioned toppings, which I did not have, would have improved it. I actually have a potato soup recipe that I prefer, but have not been able to find my cookbooks since we moved into this house. Handsome is in the basement right now trying to do some organizing, so maybe they'll turn up.