Warm up with this ‘spud’tacular soup

Here?s a current event you don?t need the newspaper to report for you: it?s stinkin? cold outside!

Winter finally decided to rear its ugly head, and I?m not all that excited. The only nice thing about cold weather for me is that I can fire up my oven and heat up the house, and I?m actually happy about it.

If you can?t tell, I?m not exactly a cold weather enthusiast.

Actually, there?s one other nice thing about cold weather: soup.

I do enjoy a good soup, and this week?s recipe is one that will stick to your ribs and make you forget your cabin fever for at least a little while.

I found this recipe on a blog called ?Gimme Some Oven.? (I love their name; you have to enjoy a good kitchen pun.).You can find the original at gimmesomeoven.com/potato-soup-recipe/. I?m putting the amounts for a single batch below, but I doubled the recipe when I made it and froze the other half for another day. It was easy to do, because it let me use a whole onion, my whole block of cheese and the entire carton of chicken stock I bought.

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Potato Soup

Ingredients

5 slices bacon, diced

2 tablespoons reserved bacon grease or butter

1 cup diced yellow onion

1/4 cup flour

2 cups chicken stock

2 cups milk, warmed (I used skim)

1 1/2 pounds potatoes (I didn?t peel mine, but you could if you wanted)

1 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese

1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt or sour cream (you can use fat free or low fat)

salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Brown the bacon over medium heat in a Dutch oven.

Once the bacon is crispy, remove it and place it on a paper towel to drain.

Drain all but about two tablespoons of bacon grease from the pot (or you can drain all of it and substitute butter if you like).

Brown the diced onion in the bacon grease for several minutes until the onions are soft and translucent.

Add in the flour and stir to combine. Let it cook for one to two minutes to cook out the flour taste.

Add the chicken stock, and stir until it is well-combined with the flour mixture.

Add the warm milk, potatoes and cooked bacon. Raise the temperature slightly to get the soup up to a simmer but not quite boiling.

Reduce the heat to medium-low, cover and cook for about 15 minutes or until the potatoes are fork tender, stirring every few minutes to keep the soup from scorching on the bottom of the pot.

When the potatoes are done, add the cheese and yogurt and stir to incorporate. Add salt and pepper to taste.

This is good served with some crusty bread.

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This soup smelled just as good as it tasted. Joey came home from work and declared that he could smell it clear out in the driveway when he got out of the car (apologies to my neighbors for the deliciousness wafting around the block).

And it definitely fought off my cold weather blues for at least a little while, even if I did immediately crawl back under a blanket after dinner.

I?ll come out when it?s spring.

When not helping husband Joey with newspaper work, Lindsey teaches speech, debate and forensics at Haven High School. She can be reached at lindseyclarion@gmail.com.

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