Creamy Potato Soup

Switching gears for a bit, we'll leave the traveling alone and talk about some cooking. The weather here in Angers quickly went from comfy, to fall, to it-won't-stop-raining. Ok, so I'm a bit dramatic but it's definitely on the colder and wetter side than this Texan is used to, so I wanted to make some comfort food for dinner and settled on potato soup.

Now like any good modern girl I went straight to Pinterest for recipes (a bit leery though since the last soup we attempted was a broccoli and cheese concoction that did not turn out well). I found a few different ones but various ingredients for different recipes aren't always found in our small and close-by grocery store so I ended up using those as a path for my own recipe and ran with it.

It ended up being pretty good, if I do say so myself, so I decided I might as well share. It took about 40ish minutes to make overall and probably serves 4-6 people depending on your portions. You'll notice the varying amounts for ingredients—I'm more of a just-throw-stuff-in when it comes to cooking (baking I stick closer to the book) so I'm not 100% sure on the amounts so I estimated how much I put in. With this recipe I think you need the freedom to adjust for your own personal tastes—like if you want it to be more soupy than chowder (I went for chowder). So fix it up your way, grab some bread and enjoy!

Potato Soup

Not so much food for the eyes, but fantastic for the stomach

2-3 Butter

¼ c Onion

2-3 Garlic cloves

½ c of Bacon pieces (or ham)

25 cl Cream

~1 1/2c Milk

4 tbs Flour

Salt and Pepper to taste

~1/2 tbsp Parsley

 ~1/4 tbsp Seasoning mix (like Tony's)

5 med Potatoes

½-3/4 c of cheese

1. Wash and pierce the potatoes with a fork. Bake them in a microwave (or if you're old school, oven) until they're soft enough to mash.

2. Mince onion and garlic cloves and heat in pot with 1-2 tbs butter and cook on medium heat, once tender add the meat.

3. Once meat is done add cream, milk, flour, and seasonings. Stir and turn the heat down to medium-low so it doesn't boil.

4. Peel the potatoes as much as you can and then mash before adding to soup mixture. You can either mash through so the potatoes are mushy or leave in some chunks (I left some in, gave the soup more texture). Add cheese and stir so the mixture is well blended.

5. Heat until everything's warm then serve.

Bon Appétit!