Loaded Baked Potato Soup

The first time I ever heard of this soup was in an e-mail from Sweet Tomatoes. Since I love baked potatoes and I love soup I was very excited and made the 35 mile trip to try it with eager anticipation. I was so disappointed! Their soup had so little flavor. I still wanted to try a good loaded baked potato soup so I looked online, found a recipe and tweaked it a bit.
Sheer Loaded Baked Potato Bliss!

Loaded Baked Potato Soup

Ingredients:
12 oz thick sliced Applewood smoked bacon
13-15 med/lg. potatoes, baked

3-4 stalks celery finely diced
2-3 large carrots, peeled, finely diced
1 large onion, finely chopped

1 jalapeno finely chopped
1 red bell pepper, finely chopped
4-8 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
1 cup thinly sliced ham or Canadian Bacon (or mini cubed ham)

6 cups (or 3 cans) chicken broth
2 cups (or 1 can) vegetable broth

1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon pepper
½ - 1 cup milk, warmed
1 tablespoon butter (optional)
2 cloves garlic, minced or pressed (optional)

1 pint half and half
1 small carton sour cream
1 ½ cups shredded cheddar cheese

Garnish
½ cup sour cream
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1 cup thinly sliced green onion (green part)

Directions:
Cut bacon into chunks, cook in large stock pot until crisp.
Remove the bacon, set aside.  Also remove grease, and discard, reserving about 2-3 Tablespoons
Chop carrots, celery and onion. Use to make mirapoix, in the bacon grease.
While the mirapoix is cooking mash 10 of the potatoes adding warm milk, salt and pepper. You can saute the two cloves of garlic in the butter and add them to the potatoes if you would like. I dice the potatoes with the peel on and toss it all in a stand mixer to mash them.
Peel the remaining potatoes and cut them into bite size chunks, set aside.
This is a slight change from the usual mirapoix step. Before de-glazing the pan add the diced peppers, garlic and ham and saute about 5 minutes, stirring often.

Scoop out most of the veggie and ham mixture. Add a small amount of the broth to de-glaze the pan. Once the pan is de-glazed add the rest of the cooked veggies and ham back to the pot along with the rest of the broth and half & half.
Stir the mashed potatoes into the soup mixing until well combined. Add potato chunks. Heat about 10 minutes.

Add sour cream, cheese and most of the bacon, stir well, heat until sour cream dissolves and cheese is melted.
Stir in half and half
Season with additional salt and pepper to taste. Simmer on low until ready to serve.
Spoon into bowls. Top with a dollop of sour cream, a sprinkle each of bacon, cheese and green onion.

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Tips and Hints

• If you are timid about spicy food still use the jalapeno, but be sure it is seeded with the membrane removed. The dairy products really diminish the heat so you shouldn't need to omit it. To turn up the heat toss in a few more and leave in the seeds, I use about 3 jalapenos
• Try pre-baking the potatoes and pre-cooking the bacon to save time when making the soup.


• Served with some hot crusty bread this soup is hearty enough to make a perfect meal.

Kung Pao Chicken

Our family loves Chinese food and spicy food so Kung Pao is a favorite. James made it a few times before leaving for a mission to Guatemala. Unfortunately I don't know what happened to the recipe he used so when we got in the mood for it I had to search online. I found a couple that looked promising so I combined, adapted and added a touch or two of my own and came up with a version my family really enjoyed!

Kung Pao Chicken

Ingredients:

4 large boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into chunks

Marinade:

1 Tablespoon sesame oil
2 Tablespoons olive oil
4 Tablespoons soy sauce*
4 Tablespoon white cooking wine
2 Tablespoon rice vinegar

4-5 Tablespoons cornstarch
1 Tablespoon sesame oil
1 Tablespoon olive oil


Sauce:

4 Tablespoons soy sauce*
2 Tablespoons rice vinegar
2 Tablespoons white cooking wine
1 Tablespoon hot chili paste
3 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
2 teaspoons brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
4 green onions chopped

1/2 cup unsalted dry roasted peanuts
dried red pepper pods

Directions:
Mix the ingredients for the marinade and add the chicken, mix well to cover thoroughly cover and refrigerate about 30 minutes.
While chicken is marinating mix the ingredients for the sauce in a small bowl and set aside.
Lift from marinade with a slotted spoon, place in a medium size bowl and sprinkle with the cornstarch stirring until a thin paste covers the chicken.
Heat the oil in a wok** or sturdy pot, add the chicken and cook until no longer pink. Remove chicken from pot. The cornstarch mixture may stick to the pot in some places, scrape off excess and discard, some will incorporate into sauce.
Add sauce ingredients to hot pot and heat to a slow simmer. Add chicken back into the sauce mixture and mix well to coat. Add peanuts and red pepper pods to taste.
Serve over hot oriental noodles or rice.

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Tips and Hints

• I am not a big fan of sesame oil, if you like it you could replace the olive oil and use only sesame.

• Be careful with the red pepper pods. Some tend to be very hot and a few can go a long way.

• You can get the small pods at an asian specialty store and they can be a bit pricey. I've seen some that are a bit larger in most grocery stores in the Mexican section for a much better price.

• *LaChoy is a gluten free soy sauce.  There are others out there as well, just make sure you keep looking.

** For best results use a real wok.  Trust me, it makes a huge difference

Mirapoix

I have a wonderful friend named Andrea. When Martha Stewart grows up she wants to be Andrea. The things Andrea can do could fill a huge book. She is the most amazing chef, she can taste a dish and figure out how to replicate it. Last year at Girls' Camp she used one of the cabins to create a kitchen complete with a refrigerator she made herself that required no electricity.

Andrea taught me how to create the perfect base to any soup. It begins with mirapoix (mir-a-pwah) Since learning this technique my homemade soups have greatly improved in depth and richness of flavor.

Let me pass on the Magic of Andrea

Mirapoix

Ingredients:
Equal parts diced:

onion
carrots
celery

olive oil

salt

liquid (according to soup you intend to make)


Directions:

The proportions are not listed because it is not an exact science. I usually use one large onion and enough carrots and celery to balance it out.


In a large soup pot slightly heat a tablespoon or so of the oil. Add the veggies and sprinkle with a bit of salt, this draws out the natural sugars in the veggies. Saute on medium heat, but don't scorch the oil, until the veggies start to caramelize and turn the bottom of the pan starts turning dark, you'll want a fairly large patch of the dark caramelization. Don't let it burn.

pan with carmelized mirapoix

Pour a small amount of the the liquid into the pan and stir with a wooden spoon, scraping at the dark patches until they loosen and are incorporated into the liquid and vegetables. The bottom of the pan should mostly "clean up" This is called de-glazing

pan that has been deglazed

Now you are ready to proceed with making your soup. Just follow your recipe from here.

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Tips and Hints

• I usually dice the veggies very fine, but they can be a little bigger if you like


• They tend to shrivel as they cook so if want a soup with a lot of chunky vegetables I would recommend adding extra chopped veggies after you have de-glazed the pan.


• You can use butter or some other fat source in place of the olive oil, just be aware of the scorching temperature of your fat.


• Sometimes I need to use up my veggies so I use more than normal, if there are too many to easily de-glaze the pan I'll scoop most of them out before de-glazing the pan, then add them back in after the pan is clean.


• Some soup recipes will call for the mirapoix ingredients and direct you to cook 10 minutes or so. I would recommend following the mirapoix directions and cooking until caramelized, as this makes the flavor so much more full.


• If your recipe calls for the three vegetables you can use those amounts as your guide.


• Mirapoix can be the basis for just about any soup you could think of (French Onion is about the only exception - for this just use lots of onion and saute it until it caramelizes)


• Even if your family does not like these veggies use them anyway, just dice them extra fine! Trust me. My husband claims to hate celery, but he loves the soups I make using celery in a mirapoix base.


• Alternate spelling: mirepoix