Today, my friends, we're going to make Potato Soup. I think that Pioneer Lady calls it PERFECT Potato Soup. However, my version is called Practical Potato Soup.
Let me start by thieving the ingredients for this straight from Pioneer's site... I added my own comments in italics.
Now... Moving on to the actual directions. Here's how you're going to put all of this together. Or, should I say, "Here's how I would put all of these ingredients together?"
Bacon. This is like the flute that the Pied Piper used to lead the children out of the city. The smell of bacon will make the wiliest child come out of their hiding place and put their iPhone down. So, chop up whatever bacon comes in the package. The recipe calls for six slices, but what are you going to do with leftover raw bacon? I don't cook breakfast, so it's just going to get shoved to the back of the fridge and turn unnatural colors and emit nasty smells. So, just cook the whole darn package.
Notice that I don't have some fancy high dollar pot to cook the bacon in. I have an IKEA wok! Yes, a wok! Don't judge me. The bacon got cooked to a perfect crunchiness.
Um, I also don't have a fancy lid for my fancy IKEA pot, either. Someone (I won't call names) dropped the lid while loading the dishwasher and it burst into a gazillion pieces. So, after choosing this pot as my vat of choice, I realized that if I didn't cover it, I was going to actually have to clean the whole stove area and rid it of spattered bacon grease. So... I used the biggest bowl I own to cover it all up! I'm so dang smart! See? I should get extra Martha Stewart points on my chart for being able to be successful against all odds!
Seriously? I'm glad I cooked the whole dang package. That stuff shrivels up to absolutely nothing. It's sort of like a teacher's paycheck!
Then, you'll need to chop up the onion. This should be pretty simple, but when there's a four year old calling for you to fix the computer because ABC Mouse won't let her color the right picture, even chopping an onion can take a while.
Then, there's the celery. Did you know that they make Biggest Loser celery? I don't care if they put a picture of SpongeBob on this stuff, I can't stand it. I like it even less with the skinny Nazis on the front of it. I should have sat the bacon right next to the trio and let them inhale the fumes.
Then, there's the carrots. Pioneer Woman wants you to use real carrots like the Easter Bunny carries around. She wants you to clean (scrub) them and chop them. Whatever. Just buy a bag where they've already done that for you. Duh!
So, maybe I should have bought the shredded carrots instead of the chips. I still had to chop those suckers up and they were really hard. Every time I sliced through them, they went flying everywhere. It's recipes like this that make me miss having a dog who'd sit at the edge of the kitchen and wait for anything to hit the floor! Anyway, just get the dumb carrots into bite sized pieces.
So, you've now got the onions, celery, and carrots all chopped up into nice little pieces. Then, you'll dump all of that back into the wok that you didn't clean out thoroughly so that the bacon grease will coat the outside of those crunchy little veggies and negate every single nutrient in them. Please take note to be very careful when you initially pour the majority of the bacon grease out of the pan, though. Even the tiniest little dribble of grease on a tile floor will wreak major havoc. Oops.
Then, there's the potatoes. Once again, I'm not showing off any high prices cooking pieces. The colander shown in this picture has been used as a hat and a drum multiple times, but it still gets the job done! The recipe calls for six small potatoes. Ok. Who gets to choose what "small" looks like? I knew that I was going to be feeding a big crew, so I just washed the whole bag. Seriously? What are you going to do with one or two leftover potatoes? They end up sitting in the bottom of the cupboard, sprouting enough eyes to be classified as a martian, and then they start to ooze and smell like a science project gone bad.
I thought the easiest way to take care of the potatoes would be to use the vegetable peeler to de-peel the potatoes. However, the peeler was MIA. What's the next best thing? A husband, of course! Ray ended up on KP duty (killing potatoes).
Most times, when Pioneer Fancy Pants chops her veggies, they come out in very uniform shapes. Who cares! My potato chunks might not be uniform, but I can spell with them! I bet Ree has never pulled that sort of edible intelligence off before! Ha!
After you have all of the potatoes chopped up, you throw those in with the bacon grease coated veggies. Do you still call them veggies when they're coated in pig fat? Anyway, you throw in some salt and pepper, too. Fancy Pants gives exact measurements, but I'm not going to dirty up a teaspoon just to measure salt. I just throw some into the pot and hope for the best. (This is normally the attitude that keeps my cooking out of any kind of high class competitions).
I think I should even get extra points for creativity for throwing in a spice that wasn't mentioned in Pioneer's original list. I don't know where I got this stuff, but you can throw it in anything. The original recipe calls for Cajun Spices, but there's nothing in my spice rack that says, "Cajun," so I just figured that this might kick it up a notch - BAM! Or not.
Then, after you've let everything sizzle for a while in your handy dandy wok, you pour in some chicken broth (or stock, if you're illiterate and think the words stock and broth look alike). Ree Ree's recipe calls for 8 cups. In alignment with my illiterate status, I also got an F in mathematics for this recipe. Eight cups would equate to 64 ounces since 8X8=64. Yes, I'm a 3rd grade teacher, and I know my multiplication facts. However, as you can see, this box of stock only had 32 ounces in it. Duh! Did I mention that while I was trying to solve my mathematical dilemma, Dasha was sitting at the table trying to complete a worksheet about elements and Annie had given up on the computer and was now watching Dora in the background? Please take note that Prissy Pioneer never has those sorts of distractions in the background. Once again, I'm giving myself some bonus points!
I dug around in the cabinet and discovered that I did have another box of chicken broth... oh, wait. That's what I was supposed to use to start with . Dang. Anyway, I was too lazy to measure out an exact amount to make exactly eight cups, so I just tossed the whole darn thing in. Like I said, I knew that I would be feeding a lot of people, so the more the better. Right?
This is what it looked like. Oh, did I mention that I moved the whole concoction out of the wok and into a stock pot? Once again, this stock pot has served as an awesome percussion instrument and seems pretty indestructible.
Since this meal was actually intended to be eaten the next day, I figured that this would be a good stopping point. I lidded the whole thing and put it in the fridge. I don't have the luxury of one of those nice big fridges that you could hide dead bodies in, so I had to rearrange the entire contents of the fridge prior to being able to stash the pot. More points for me.
On day two, after a long day at work, I heated the "soup" back up and then used an immersion blender to hack up some of the potato chunks. Pioneer's directions called for removing 2/3 of the "mixture" and blending it and then returning it to the pot. No way! I was not going to pour burning hot soup out of a huge pot into a tiny blender only to return the whole mess back to the original pot. That's stupid! That 2/3 that I removed would probably end up being about one cup after all of the spillage I'd have. So, the immersion blender worked out well for my laziness. Please note that while this was all going on, I was trying to dress Annie for ballet. Do you know how hard it is to get a leotard on a wiggly kid? And getting the tights on? Ha! If we made folks successfully get a pair of fragile tights on a ticked off toddler prior to allowing them to reproduce, we'd prevent a lot of folks with anger management issues from reproducing. Wow. That was really off topic.
So, next, you mix some flour and milk together so it looks sort of like pancake batter (or milk that's been held captive in a sippy cup under the car seat for a few weeks). Once again, measuring simply dirties up more dishes. This is where judgement and common sense (or lack of) comes into play.
Then, you add this stuff. The recipe only calls for 1/2 cup, but, I don't want to be wasteful and I know that the remainder of this tiny little carton will get shoved to the back of the fridge and mutate. So, I just dumped the whole thing in. Pioneer Princess can't ever say that I'm wasteful.
Finally, you get something that looks like this. I didn't have any time to lovingly ladle this into pretty bowls and garnish it. Maybe Pioneer's family appreciates that sort of frivolity, but my crew would think I'd lost my mind if I served them something that looked pretty.
So, that's how this whole Practical Potato Soup works. I don't have fancy granite counter tops to sparkle in the background of the photos. I have good old laminate stuff that covers particle board below to provide adequate counter surfaces. I also don't have mega-dollar appliances or cooking ware. However, I do manage to cook dinner without killing anyone - usually - just ignore that earlier comment about dead bodies in the fridge.
But, if that wasn't enough for you, and you need to feel even better about your cooking skills, here's what happens when I'm not "on camera."
I saw this great thing on Pinterest about budget dinners for the slow cooker. I'm not a fan of dark meat of any kind, but I thought I'd give this a try after seeing a bag of chicken drumsticks at BJs that would feed all of the third world nations for only $10. I thought I could easily skin them (the drumsticks - not the third world countries) and then toss them in the pot. Ha! Do you know how hard it is to skin drumsticks? I was gagging with every slimy tug. I lost count of how many drumsticks hit the floor or went flying out of my hands as I tried to take that nasty skin off. Ugh. After a few unsuccessful strategies to take the stuff off, I threw them in the pot with the skin on. Oh well.
I dumped the BBQ sauce right over them just like the directions said. I clapped the lid down over those nasty things, turned the cooker to low, and left for work.
In the words of Brittany, "Oops, I did it again."
So, you can see why I feel compelled to search out worthy recipes and things that I can cook without causing too much damage. I guess I'll continue to follow Princess Pioneer to get some good ideas. However, if we were to ever be put toe-to-toe in an everyday person's kitchen, I think I could take her.
Good night, all.
Oh, here's the link if you want to check out this Perfect Pioneer for yourself...
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