The Art of Faking It

Often in the kitchen I find myself at a total loss. What's for dinner? What'd we have yesterday? While we're at it, what have I got to work with?

Oh, you thought I meant faking It. No, I'm talking about cooking.

Today I wanted to make potato soup. Potato soup is a favorite in my family, and since we get milk from WIC, it's really cheap to make. You can make a good meal out of a hearty potato soup and some whole-wheat bread.

Here's the actual recipe in the Ugly Green Binder:

Potato Soup
6-8 medium potatoes
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup flour
6 cups milk
2 teaspoons chicken bouillon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/2 lb cheddar cheese

Peel, cube, boil, drain and "mush" potatoes to the consistency you like (I like them lumpy, but my kids like smaller pieces). In separate pan, melt butter, add flour and cook while stirring for about a minute or so. Add half the milk and stir until lumps are out of flour mixture. Add remaining milk and on med-high heat, heat to a boil. Stir almost constantly or it will scorch. After boiling, turn heat off and add remaining ingredients.

Easy, right?

In real life, I can't stick to a recipe to save my life. Part of it is I only work with stuff on hand, and lots of recipes can be changed on the fly. The other half is, well, I like to cook.

I like stuff in my soups, so out come the carrots, celery, and onion (make sure you pre-cook the carrots). Maybe some corn. Oh, we like peppery soups, so I start with about two teaspoons.

Chicken bouillon works well, it keeps it from tasting like a mouthful of hot milk, but vegetable or ham work well too. If you have stock or broth, use cream instead of milk and substitute two cups of broth for two cups of milk. I didn't have any bouillon or soup base in the house, so I used a little crushed garlic, basil, and extra salt and pepper. I've often wondered if adding a can of clams and substituting a cup of clam juice for one cup of milk could make a decent chowder.

I have no clue what size a medium potato is. I have a 6 cup bowl and I start chopping potatoes in about 1/2 inch chunks until it's mostly full. And peel them? That where all the vitamins are! Boil them until they fall off a fork, maybe 15 minutes, drain and let them steam dry (that just means let them sit and steam, it pulls moisture out of the potatoes). Then you have options. If you like a really really thick potato soup mash 'em all. If you like a milk broth with tater chunks in it, don't mash at all. We're somewhere in between, so I mash about half of them. Remember, the roux (the flour and butter paste) will make this thicken in the fridge.

I don't care for cheese in my potato soup. I might float some on top, or use it if I'm making potato & broccoli soup, but otherwise I have better things to do with my soup. But crumbled bacon works well, so does ham (boil the meat off a ham hock for cheap soup ham). Be sure to get rid of as much fat as possible before adding meat to cream soups.

So my recipe is more like:

Potato Soup
5-6 cups unpeeled cubed potatoes
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup flour
6 cups of milk
2 teaspoons chicken soup base
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons pepper
1/2 cup fine chopped celery
1/2 cup fine chopped onion
1 cup diced carrots, cooked
1 can corn niblets, drained
1/2 to 1 cup crumbled bacon or fine chopped ham

Boil, drain and mash potatoes to the consistency you like. In separate pan, melt butter, add flour and cook while stirring for about a minute or so. Add half the milk and stir until lumps are out of flour mixture. Add remaining milk, onion, celery, and seasonings and on med-high heat, heat to a boil. Stir almost constantly or it will scorch. After boiling, turn heat off and add potatoes, carrots, and corn. Stir lots. Refridgerate or serve immediately.

The point is, besides showing off my potato soup, that you can make do with what you have. The basic recipe is potatoes and milk, and that's just great, nothing wrong with it. But you can make it as fancy or plain as you like, just with what you have on hand.