Tuesday, December 20, 2011

My Christmas Gift To You

I’m probably going to get in trouble with my kids for doing this, but it’s really not often that they read my blog unless it’s over my shoulder. Since they’re in bed right now I feel safe.

This gift goes back 21 and a half years to my first week as a married woman. That’s the first time I made a little two-potato pot of soup.

For the next 15 or so years I tweaked and adjusted (and increased) my recipe until I arrived at the recipe I’m using today. Somewhere along the way it became a favorite on Friday nights and most especially our family tradition to serve for dinner on Christmas Eve.

Over the years I’ve been asked to share it but I had these lingering dreams of someday selling the recipe to a restaurant, opening my own vegetarian bistro or at the very least, writing a cookbook.

Well, I’m busy. And lazy. There will be no bistros or cookbooks. It’s taking a large amount of effort to even write this up for the blog. I'm currently getting "403 - forbidden" errors when I try to publish this. But I’ve still decided to go ahead and share. (Please don’t tell my kids I shared our most sought after family secret…)


Sara’s Potato Soup
 (AKA – Coronary in a Pot)
In a large stock pot sauté:
  • 1/2 stick butter
  • 1 large onion – chopped
  • 4 stalks celery – chopped
  • 1 large carrot – grated
  • 1 t white pepper
  • 1 t salt
  • 24 grinds fresh black pepper
  • 1/4 t celery seed
  • 3-4 cloves garlic – crushed or pressed
After the above has sautéed nicely add approximately 7 pounds (a bag and a half) of yellow gold potatoes, peeled and cut into 1 1/2 inch cubes. You can add variety here by only peeling half of the potatoes and washing the other half. OR if you have baked potatoes leftover it’s nice to add them. I don’t peel the baked ones either. Just use a nice quality cooking potato for smoothness.

Immediately pour in:
  • 4 (14 ounce) cans vegetable broth (or about 2 boxes)
  • 3 T (rounded) McKay’s Chicken Style Seasoning OR 2 T Better Than Bouillon Vegetarian No-Chicken Base)
Be sure that potatoes are nearly covered in broth and let cook down uncovered at a gentle boil. It will get very thick with no clear liquid and the potatoes will break down except for some large chunks. Stir frequently to avoid scorching the bottom. This takes about 30-45 minutes. This is a vegetarian recipe – if you don’t want vegetarian use chicken broth and omit the chicken style seasoning.

After it’s all cooked down and thickened up, add:
  • 1 can cream style corn
  • 8 ounces cheese – grated
  • 8 ounces sour cream
  • 1 pint heavy cream (OR half-n-half)
Don’t let it boil now – just get it all stirred in – then use a stick blender to smooth it out a bit. I like to leave a lot of lumps.

Serve hot with a garnish of grated cheese or sour cream dollop and a nice salad and some great bread to scrape the bowl.

It will be very thick the next day. It’s best warmed slowly on the stove adding milk to thin it to the desired consistency.

You can reduce the calories and fat by using low fat or 50/50 butter and sour cream and using milk rather than heavy cream or half-n-half and reducing the amount of cheese. But really… how often are you going to make this? Leave it full flavored.

There you have it. No ingredients left out, no secrets saved, and you don’t have to get me anything.

Make up a pot for your family this Christmas.

I’m linking up to:
Tip Junkie handmade projects 

Funky Junk's Saturday Nite Special

10 comments:

  1. Yummmy! Your blog is so cute! Thank you so much for sharing. I am your newest follower. I'd appreciate it if you stopped over at my blog and followed me back! Thanks! http://milliemorganmedia.blogspot.com

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  2. That sounds delicious! I'm pinning it to remember on a cold winter night.

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  3. I can't believe it. I thought it would never happen. Or, wait, did you change one of the ingredients so yours would still be better? Lisa~

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  4. what ^ she^ said.. :p thank you for sharing and with all the rain it's soup day every day! :)

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  5. Oh YUM! Someone was just talking about baked potatoe soup the other day and I thought...I need to learn how to make that. Well, I'm not sure this is exactly the same but it sounds delicious! Glad to have stopped in and wanted to say thanks for your comment and compliment on my Serving Tray post. It feels so good to receive positive feedback!
    Merry Christmas

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  6. If this tastes half as good as it lookes, I know we're going to love it! Thanks for sharing, and thanks for visiting my blog. I'm now a follower!

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  7. Yum! And I feel so special to receive such a great gift from The Other End of the Candle! Thanks!

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  8. This looks absolutely delicious. We don't have creamed corn here in the UK... I wonder if there would be an alternative, or would it be ok to just leave it out. I love the look of this soup, especially as we have a *ton* of our own potatoes :)
    Thanks for giving up your secret recipe ;)

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  9. Sara, I'm definitely giving this a try, along with some of your other recipes on your blog. I'm now a follower!

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  10. Thanks for a great Christmas present....I really like some of your tweaking, and will work my recipe with your recipe and come out with a whole new hybrid one day LoL

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Thanks for stopping by. It warms my heart that you would take the time to comment. Well... If you said something nice it warms my heart...

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