Creamy Potato Soup

I hate cold weather. I love fall colors but not the cold that comes with it.

But I love the soups I get to eat when it's cold outside!!!

Creamy Potato Soup (based on The Pioneer Woman's recipe)

7 strips bacon                                                                                                                                                      2 cups diced carrots                                                                                                                                          2 cups diced onions                                                                                                                                           2 cups diced celery                                                                                                                                              6-8 cups diced red potatoes                                                                                                                                6-8 cups chicken broth                                                                                                                                      1 cup milk                                                                                                                                                           3 T GF flour                                                                                                                                                Heavy whipping cream                                                                                                                                       Salt                                                                                                                                                                  Pepper                                                                                                                                                        Cayenne powder

Dice up the bacon and cook it in the bottom of a big pot until it is super crispy on med to med-high heat.. We use turkey bacon so there is no bacon grease but if you use normal bacon, you can save the grease to cook the veggies in.

Take the bacon out of the pot and add the diced carrots, onions, and celery. Let the veggies cook for 5-10 minutes, until the onions start to look translucent. You only need to stir occassionally if you have a non-stick pot. If yours isn't nonstick, cook with a little olive oil or your bacon grease so the veggies don't stick or burn to the bottom.

While the veggies cook you can dice up your potatoes. We use red potatoes because white potatoes mess with my digestion. Feel free to use whichever potatoes you like! Add the diced potatoes to the veggies and add a TON of salt. For real, it's really hard to add too much salt. I pour a big pile of salt into my hand twice. If you are worried, go easy on the salt now and add at the end when you can do taste tests. Let cook another 5ish minutes to get the potatoes started cooking.

Then add your chicken broth, you need enough to cover the potatoes and veggies...somewhere between 6-8 cups. You don't want too much broth because then it will be too soupy and not thick and delicious enough.Bring the soup to a boil and cook until potatoes are cooked through...shouldn't take too long once the broth boils.

Whisk the milk and flour together and slowly add to the soup. I don't always use this milk and flour mixture...the heavy whipping cream can thicken up the soup on its own. Experiment to find out which you like better, milk and flour plus whipping cream, just whipping cream, or just milk and flour.

After adding (or not adding) the milk and flour mixture, use a measuring cup to scoop half to two thirds of the soup into a blender. Blend to your hearts content! If you like a super smooth soup, blend the whole thing (this will mean utilizing bowls to separate blended soup from unblended soup until it's all blended together unless you have a giant blender that can hold 10 cups or more). I like good chunks in my soup so I blend only half. In your blender, make sure to leave a good several inches of room between lid and soup...the heat plus the blending will cause the soup to explode if it's too full. I may have learned this the hard way.

Add your blended soup to your unblended soup (or put your entirely blended soup back in the pot) and add whipping cream if you want. I don't measure, I just pour in glops (my technical term for quick 1-2 second pours) until I feel it's the consistency I want.

Finally, I taste test and add salt and pepper and cayenne powder as I want. The cayenne pepper adds some great heat to the soup, The Pioneer Woman adds some cajun spices to hers. Experiment! It's a potato soup, think about all the seasonings that taste good with potatoes...chances are it will taste great in this soup.

When you serve the soup, top with the bacon you cooked at the beginning and maybe some shredded cheese! This particular time I was feeling fancy and chopped up some parsley to sprinkle on top as well.

Hope you enjoy this soup as much as our family!