Paq

over the next few days or hours or whenever i get around to it, i'm going to add a few recipes that save my butt when i'm called upon to cook. Most of my dishes are simple 2 pot/1 course meals or every now and then somehting a bit more elaborate.

Anyway, to start off, one of my favorite things to eat:

To preface, i generally cook for 1 person, me, and my recipes are never exact measurements, so adjust for taste. I'll tell you how much i use and you can double/triple, quad/whatever you need to do based on how many people you have.

Ancho potato soup:
ingredients:
1 medium potato per person, peeled and sliced into roughly 1/4 inch thick slices. It really doesn't matter the size as long as the slices are about the same thickness so they don't cook at different tmies.

1 cup or so of water

3 cloves of garlic, chopped, fresh

olive oil or butter/olive oil

about 1/2 of a dried ancho, seeded. You can get these at wallyworld or the local grocery store in the dried peppers/latino section. it should be about $1-2 per bag and they contain a lot of peppers, 1 bag can last me a full year, depending.

flour, generally a tablespoon, more or less

a splash of milk, generally about 1/4 cup per person

cheddar cheese, sour cream, or pepperjack cheese.

This is really simple:----easy instructions far below if you're more comfortable cooking:

chop your ancho pepper into very small pieces. I personally use scissors for this, set aside.
use a small, heavy bottomed pot, pour in about a teaspoon of olive oil or butter/olive oil on medium heat. if you use butter, please mix with some oil so it does not burn. dump the garlic in and sautee until the garlic is soft, not really browned, but cooked. Sprinkle flour over the top to mix with the oil and stir to start a roux. You want enough flour to soak up the oil w/out being dried out and you will stir until it forms a little ball or just coats really well. do not burn or let it sit for long as burned flour does not taste great. It should be a golden color when you get the oil/flour mix right. you can add a bit of oil if it looks too dry. once this is done, i put the potatoes in and pour in just enough water to cover everything and stir. the roux will break down dissolve in the water easily. put your pepper in now as well and turn the heat to high and stir constantly until it boils. once it is boiling, drop heat to med/med low and let it simmer until the potatoes are done, generally about 15 minutes, stirring every few minutes. add the milk and bring it back to a boil, add salt and black pepper if you wish. The soup will be a reddish color now from the peppers and have a distinct flavor. i can't recommend how much salt as that almost totally depends on how i'm feeling that day. it should be pretty thin, not too thick, depends on how much you stir and how much flour you used in the beginning. Mine is normally not as thick as restaurant or canned potato soup normally is.

Pour it into a bowl and top with sour cream or cheese and serve.

Wow, that sounds more confusing than it really is.

in basic terms, sautee garlic in olive oil, add flour, stir to form a roux, add potatoes, water, and ancho peppers, stir till everything is combined and boiling, let simmer for about 15 minutes on medium heat, stirring every few minutes, add milk and salt/pepper, gentle boil for a few minutes till it thickens a bit, pour in a bowl and top with cheese.

There, much easier, about 30 minutes start to finish for me.
any questions?

ps, this is VERY easily altered. use onions, celery, red pepper, omit the ancho pepper, and you have a more traditional potato soup, use a bit of cream cheese when you add the milk and stir more vigorously and you have a much creamier soup with a good flavor, use whole milk for creamier texture(i use 2% generally) and some people use heavy cream, but i can't do that as my heart would stop.

I generally stick with as little oil and fat as i can and this comes out to be under 20 grams per serving if you load the cheese on. The soup itself is roughly 10 grams with the olive oil/2% milk.

__________________
Live.

Chris