Baked Potato Soup

What I'm about to say may surprise most of you who know me. To be honest, it still surprises me. But I promise you, it did actually happen. I taught a religion class my senior year of high school. Oh, and I attended religion class until I was 15. My friend Brian, who I grew up taking religion class with, somehow got me to agree to teach with him. I use the term "teach" very loosely. It was more along the lines of hanging out with a bunch of third graders every week, pretending that I had the least bit of knowledge about the Bible, and bribing them with large quantities of candy. The parents of a little girl with ADHD warned us at the beginning of the year that their daughter's medication wore off by around 5PM so she might be a little energetic when she arrived at 7PM. I'm guessing they weren't expecting us to return her an hour later with the sugar from 8 mini Twix bars pumping through her veins. Similarly, when my parents dropped us off each Wednesday they probably didn't expect one of the hidden risks of religion class to be their children's lungs turning black from having to stand near the chain-smoking crossing guard.

For the first 15 years of my life when my parents forced my brothers and I to go to religion class, what I got out of the experience had absolutely nothing to do with Jesus, Mary, or Joseph. I know nothing about Peter or Paul, aside from the fact that their names are Peter and Paul. I don't think I've ever actually read from the Bible, and I'm always baffled by people who can quote parts of it. I can, however, tell you that I usually ordered a Snickers blizzard in chocolate ice cream when we stopped at Dairy Queen on the way home. Also, I'm pretty sure there was a girl in my class whose last name was Roloff, and hearing her name always made me want Rolos. I swear I wasn't a fat kid.

When Brian and I ended up teaching, I still didn't get anything out of the experience religion-wise. We decided to teach a class more because we thought it would be fun(ny) than because we had a desire to teach a bunch of kids about Catholicism. I have no idea how we pulled that off. Brian at least went to a Catholic school, but the closest I came to knowing anything about the Bible was spending an hour (45 minutes on good days!) a week daydreaming in a church pew. I am fairly certain that the classes we taught were of no educational value, but I can tell you that Brian used to bring me big bowls of baked potato soup from the restaurant where he worked that I would eat before class. Weekly bowls of creamy potato soup dotted with bacon bits made our decision to teach worth it to me. At least until Christmas break when Brian came out, skipped town, and left me soupless and alone in front of a bunch of eight-year-olds. That's a story for another day, though. Today is all about BPS, as we so fondly referred to it back then.

My mom actually found the recipe for the soup from the restaurant in my hometown, but it was unnecessarily complicated and I could not bring myself to use the recipe of the self-proclaimed "Food Guru" whose claim to fame is boneless chicken wings. Instead I looked up some recipes online and in cookbooks and came up with my own little formula for a bowl of creamy, potatoey goodness.

Baked Potato Soup

Serves 8-10

4 large potatoes, or their equivalent in smaller ones

3 leeks

4 cups chicken or vegetable broth*

4 cups water

2 tbsp butter

Salt & pepper

Optional ingredients:

Cream, grated cheese, crumbled bacon, green onions

*You can skip the broth and just use water if you'd like.

This soup can be incredibly simple and healthy, or it can be rich and decadent. The only things you really need are potatoes and leeks. You can use water instead of broth or stock, and the only seasoning you need is salt and pepper, which I assume you already have.

Thank you to my wonderful aunt Amy for the potatoes!

Chop off the ends of the leeks, leaving only the white and light green parts.

Leeks aren't actually in the BPS that I ate so much of in high school, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to add a little nutritional value. Especially considering the cream and bacon I would be adding later.

Slice the leeks into small rounds.

Place them in a colander and rinse well, making sure to get all of the dirt out of the rings.

Peel and chop the potatoes into 1/2" pieces.

Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a large pot over medium heat.

Add the leeks, and saute for about two minutes. Sprinkle with some salt.

Then add the potatoes and mix them in with the leeks. Let it all cook for a few more minutes.

Then add the liquid. I started out with 4 cups of chicken stock, which is what you see above.

Then I added 4 cups of water. I wanted to add enough so that the potatoes and leeks were completely covered, and 4 cups was the perfect amount. If you want a chunkier soup, you can just add 4-6 cups total liquid.

Partially cover the pot, and let it slowly simmer until the potatoes are tender. Season with salt & pepper. The soup is ready to be eaten at this point, or...

...you can do a little pureeing. I used my immersion blender and partially blended the potatoes and leeks. It still had chunks of potatoes, but enough of them were pureed that the soup thickened up a bit.

Serve it as is with a hunk of crusty bread. Or...

...pour in a spoonful of cream and top with grated cheese, crumbled bacon and chopped green onions. I prefer the latter.

This soup was just as good as I remembered. I really wanted to go back for a second bowl because it was so delicious, but I was stuffed after one.