Thursday, April 9, 2009

The michael5000 Kitchen#9: Potato-Cheese-Chili Soup

Provenance: This recipe is slightly adapted from a very popular cookbook that you may have heard of. Since I have never been in the habit of going out and, like, buying cookbooks, I would guess that my copy of this book comes from the time when the Quality Paperback Book Club would offer you “Four books, four bucks, no commitment, no kidding,” and then beg you to do it all over again once you had used them for your four books and then unceremoniously dumped them. I never figured out how that business model worked, but I sure did have a lot of Quality Paperback Books in the early 90s.

My copy of the cookbook falls open naturally to this recipe, which I’m sure I have used many more times than all of the rest of the recipes together. Unlike most of the recipes in this series, this is not one I am recovering from the mists of time; I always make this one at least a couple of times a year. I’ve made it for parties and to feed couples with newborns, and it is a winter perennial here at the Castle.


The Recipe:
4 Potatoes
3 cups Water
Cut the potatoes into cubes of about 2 centimeters to a side. Don’t peel them, because that’s a silly waste of time, texture, and, to a lesser extent, nutrients. Boil the potatoes in the water in a large soup pot for twenty minutes or thereabouts.

1 Tbs Butter
1 Tbs Olive Oil
1½ cups chopped Onion (more or less one medium Onion, as it turns out)
Start the Onions sautéing in the Butter and Olive Oil. And they start to soften, add:

1¾ tsp Salt
1 tsp Cumin
1 tsp dried Basil
2 large cloves Garlic, minced or crushed or whatever
1 Tbsp Black Pepper
Then, dice up:

1½ cups Red Bell Pepper (or green or yellow, but red looks best)
And sauté for a few more minutes.

By this time, you have probably taken the Potatoes off of the heat and let them cool a bit. Set a third or so of the potato cubes aside, and pour the rest of the potatoes and the potato water into your blender. Blend them into a mash, and pour back in with the unblended potato cubes. Add the sauté, stir the whole mess up, and put back over a low flame.

Then add:


1 cup Diced Green Chilies (the larger of the two sizes of cans they are typically sold in)
¾ cup Sour Cream
1 cup Milk
¾ cup grated Jack Cheese, packed.
Let it simmer for a while, and you’ve got yourself a tureen of soup!


The Results: Yummy yummy. This is a very rich and satisfying winter soup.

8 comments:

Elaine said...

This does sound good. #1, you precooked your vegetables, which helps. #2, you did not add anything frightful, like strawberry jam. #3, this recipe could not lead to arrest on felony charges, unlike some earlier offerings.
And you get extra credit for feeding people with new babies!

I will copy this one! Stealing from you is my highest form of flattery.

Rebel said...

do you always serve your soup on the back porch? ;)

Looks good either way.

Ben said...

Scope creep? I thought you were just doing recipe cards...

Looks yummy though.

boo said...

This may be a great project for his week. I need to cook. Been surviving on single serving frozen stuffs for what feels like a few weeks.

Michael5000 said...

@Elaine: Mmm... Flattery....

@Rebel: We take our meals on the back porch for at least the warmest third of the year, so it wouldn't be unusual for soup to be served there. But mostly, I'm just looking for natural light.

@Ben: I am pleased that someone attended enough to the parameters of the project to raise this objection. I include P-C-C soup as kind of an "honorary recipe card," since it's something I cook so often.

@Boo: Hi Boo! Cook something good for yourself!

Elaine said...

As a quilter, I am a highly-evolved form of thief. It never looks I stole it, but I know the truth.....

Therefore, if I steal from you, it can only be "an homage."

Though I may have to wait for next winter to make this. It's totally spring here. Hoorah for Arkansas, (or at least the part that has not been blown to bits.) Wow, this global warming stuff is difficult!

Keep cooking....
e

Jenners said...

I too am a frequent joiner and quitter of the QPBC. The offers are just too good to resist. I swear I am done with them and then they lure me back with their sweet sweet offers... I wonder how they do make money -- oh, I know, sticking it to you on the shipping costs when you buy your two books!

gl. said...

this sounds good. we have a lot of potatoes. if only it used easter eggs, i'd make it this week. :)