The Best Potato Soup You Will Ever Make

The Best Potato Soup You will EVER Make

What sounds good when it’s cold, windy and dark outside?  Well?  Home made soup of course!  So this week I made Potato Soup with Grilled Avocado and Tomato Sandwiches for dinner. 

This potato soup is awesome and creamy and just plain good. For extra creamy-ness, here’s a secret…use cream cheese!  It makes this soup so creamy and good that you can’t imagine the soup without it!

There’s only one trick to it…you have to make sure it gets hot enough to entirely disperse into the soup, otherwise you will have tiny pieces of cream cheese all over the soup and it looks well…weird.

Hope you enjoy! 

Everything You'll Need

Ingredients for Soup:

• 5 Russett potatoes
• 1 – 32 ounce container of chicken stock
• 1 – 12oz block of cream cheese
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 tsp of pepper (black or white pepper works good in this recipie)
• Any toppings you would like (I used bacon, cheddar, and scallions)

Directions for Soup:

1. Peel and chop the potatoes to your desired size (the hubby likes tiny pieces of potato when we have soup so I chopped quite a bit)
2. Put the potatoes in a large soup pot and fill with chicken broth (add water if you need to cover the potatoes a bit more – I had to add about a cup more of water to the chicken broth
3. When potatoes are done slowly mash some of the potatoes to help the soup thicken
4.  Add a full block of cream cheese (I used the 1/3 less fat cream cheese and it still turned out good) milk, garlic, and pepper
5. Bring to a boil again. **Here’s the hard part, the cream cheese will need time to get to the right temperature and really thicken the soup, bringing the soup to a slow boil for a bit will help this.  Make sure to watch the pot as if it boils over it can make a little mess. **
6. After about 20 minutes the soup should be all creamy and ready to enjoy!



I used a small pot but the recipe doubles well
for more people


7. Using a soup spoon, fill your bowls to desired portion and top with whatever potato toppings you like! *(Our favorites are bacon, cheddar, scallions, and avocado!)

Ingredients for Spur of the Moment Grilled Cheeses!

• Bread (whatever you have on hand) 
• Cheese (whatever you have on hand, blending cheeses is always yummy!)
• Fillings (we had tomatoes, and avocados)







Last minute addition to dinner

• Butter for bread

Directions for Spur of the Moment Grilled Cheeses!

1. Very lightly butter each side of bread for the sandwiches
2. Add filling 
3. Put on heated griddle/non stick pan and heat about 5 minutes per side (seriously, I had a picture for this, but apparently with the million times I was trying to place the photo, I deleted it...so use your imagination :) )
4. When they are at the desired melting consistency, they’re done!

The Finished Product!

These Beets are Made for....Cake? : Amazing Chocolate Beet Cake

OK, I have a confession to make.  Even us dietitian’s can have a dislike for some fruits and vegetables.  For me, the vegetable is Beets. I will eat Kale, or Kiwi, or itty bitty pearl onions, but put beets on my plate, and I’ll push them around like the most riveting game of croquet you’ve ever witnessed.  

That is until I ran into this recipe by Lynne Curry on the ZESTER DAILY website.

Beets are supposed to be VERY good for us.  There have been studies on athletes that have shown improved performance in runners after supplementing with beets.¹ It seems that the athletes who participated in this particular study even felt they were exerting less energy during the last part of a 5K run.¹ So, why not try them…at least they are in cake for this recipe. 

Why not try it?...

I have to say, even though the picture on the site and the words of wisdom by the author were reassuring, I remained skeptical until the actual first bite of chocolaty gooey goodness happened.

Trust me when I say this…it was amazing!  So, here you go.  My first recipe of the new year! 

Enjoy!

Obtained the recipe from:

http://zesterdaily.com/cooking/beets-dessert-cake-will-wow-crowd/

Original Recipe author: Lynne Curry

Started with whole beets, they really do smell like dirt

Beet Puree (just in case you haven't ever cooked with beets like I hadn't):

Took about half hour and was super easy.   

I peeled and diced the beets, then boiled them until tender.   

Once they were tender I threw them into the food processor and flipped a switch.  I used about four beets for this recipe (which made just under the called for 2 ½ cups of beet pure). You could also probably use cooked canned beets and puree if it's easier.

Peeled and diced the beets for boiling

Beets boiling on the stove

 

Chocolate Beet Cake!

Made about: 10 servings

Cooked about 20-25 minutes

 Mix everything together according to the directions, its so pretty!

NOTE: (if you have three layers this would be perfect, I found myself with only two one-layer pans so I had to add about 15 minutes onto the cook time to make sure they were done in the middle)

Ingredients:

2 ½ cups pureed cooked beets

6 eggs, beaten

¾ cups good quality cocoa powder

After the cakes are done in the oven, cool them on wire racks

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 ½ cups vegetable oil

3 ¾ cups granulated sugar

3 ¾ cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking soda

1 ½ teaspoons salt

Directions:

1.     Preheat the oven to 350 F
2.     Oil three 8-inch round cake pans and line them with parchment paper
3.     In a small mixing bowl, beat the beets and eggs. Combine the cocoa powder, vanilla and oil in a large measuring cup.
4.     In a large mixing bowl, whisk the sugar, flour, baking soda and salt until combined. Add the cocoa powder mixture to the flour and stir with a rubber spatula until well combined. Add the beet mixture and stir just until combined.
5.     Pour the batter into the prepared pans. Bake until the sides of the cake pull away from the pan and a wooden skewer slid into the cake’s center comes out clean 20-25 minutes. 
6.     Cool the cakes for 10 minutes and tip them out of the pans onto wire racks to cool completely.

Yes I made some cupcakes also! They were super delish!

Frosted Finished Product!

I have a confession to make, I got so carried away with the amazing smells of chocolate and butter and forgot to take pictures of the frosting being made.

Dark Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting

Took about 10 minutes to make

 The beets make the moisture of the cake amazing!

Ingredients:

6oz bittersweet chocolate

3 sticks unsalted butter at room temperature

12oz cream cheese, room temperature

1 tablespoon vanilla

3 cups sifted confectioners sugar

Directions:

1.     Melt the chocolate in a bowl over a pan of summering water. Remove from heat and set aside to cool to room temperature.
2.     In a stand mixer, use the whisk attachment to beat the butter and cream cheese until perfectly smooth. Add the vanilla and scrape down the sides of the bowl.
3.     Add the confectioners sugar and blend on medium speed until it is fully incorporated. Add the cooled chocolate mixture and blend on medium-high speed until it is very smooth and light.
4.     Spread one-third of the frosting on top of each of the cooled cake layers and stack them to create three tiers. Leave the sides un-frosted (I frosted the entire two layer cake...sides and all...I couldn't resist)

When all else fails....eat cake.

Reference:

1.     Murphy M, Eliot K, Heuertz R, Weiss E. Whole beetroot consumption acutely improves running performance. Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics; 2012: 112(4): 548 – 552

And...We're Back!

It has been a while.  So lets catch up!  

Over the last two years I have been going to school, taking care of the fur-babies, and having a adventure filed life with the hubby!  I found that with the amount of school work as well as trying to keep up with training and life in general, it was too much to keep the writing going.  

Thankfully, that time is over.  School is done, and the adventures are beginning again (not to say that school wasn't an adventure in itself, but I think you know what I mean). So while this will be a short post, I'll post some pics of what we've been up to over the past couple years. 

And of course...I am already working on the next post!  Here's some pics of a couple things that we've been up to!  Have fun!

We added a cute little kitty in 2014.  May I present Ralf!  He got trapped in the engine of my car and after taking out the bottom panel and somehow getting him out...we just had to keep him...I mean, look at that face!

Oscar remains the King of the household.  While this round of dress up did not result in stitches or bitting, he has made it clear that it will not happen again.

As always, Sam keeps on running.  She had a wonderful time in 2013 in the snow, running back up in New York at her home away from home.  She has so much fun playing with her brothers Oscar and Ralph!

In 2013 I participated in the Iredell County Sweet 16 Racing Series over the summer.  The series consisted of 16 weeks of Tuesday Night 5K's that started in May and went through the end of August.  It was the first time I had won anything, but I think the real win (even though they gave me a medal and a trophy) was the people I met along the way and the fact that Statesville now has a tough running community!

Chris had a solid year racing the #55 in both 2013 and 2014.  In 2013, the car debuted and raced some of the races up in Oswego, but in 2014, with the help of the commitment program, the Osetek Technology team #55 made all races and even placed in the top 10 several times!  We're looking forward to the upcoming 2015 year!

All through 2013 and 2014 I continued to get my homework done and keep going.  Ralph often came and sat with me over 2014 while I did my homework.  Maybe he earned a degree also!  Really though, it was tough.  Full time work and full time school was really taxing, but thankfully being surrounded by some awesome people helped me through it.

Chris and I continued as we always will, to make our home ours.  With our three animals, a race car, running, school, helping with robotics teams, working, taking up the carpet and putting down hardwood floors, getting both a new car and truck as well as keeping the faith that no matter what if we don't give up or give in, we will reach our goals, we had fun and worked hard.

Oh yeah...And I FINISHED SCHOOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I now have a Masters of Science in Nutrition and Wellness.
Nothing else needs to be said here :)

As always, I'll keep the adventures coming, and will be posting again soon!  I hope you have enjoyed the pictures of things that we have been up to over the past couple years.  I'll write again soon!
Erin