Pierogi Soup
As I may have mentioned, when it comes to food, I am a fan of “extras” – making more than you intend to eat, or buying more than you can possibly use at one time. Why? Because with two active kids, leftovers come in handy a lot of the time. I mean, A LOT. And, I enjoy finding fun new ways to put these extras together. Plus, it can be “eco/green” – like making banana bread out of an excess of ripe bananas that you’ve thrown into the freezer…
Just last week, we had some leftover bacon. I know, I know, there’s no such thing as “leftover bacon”. What I mean is, I cooked up an entire rasher of the stuff, with the express purpose of having too much to eat at one time. Without getting violently ill, that is. Anyway. That night, I also made some baked potatoes, so I threw in a few extras for good measure. All these “extras” were tucked safely into the fridge overnight.
The next day, I got to thinking about creamy potatoes… with bacon… and cheddar… and I wanted it to be somewhat velvety in form… So I looked up some “potato and bacon soup” recipes, and they all seemed to involve super-fancy blending devices and a lot of work. Hmmmm… Well, instead of trying to cook and then blend a bunch of hot stuff in my tiny little Osterizer, I decided to make things as simple as possible.
First, I chopped up a medium onion, put it in a saucepan with a dab of butter, and I sauteed it for a couple of minutes until the onions were translucent (feel free to add some celery if you like that kind of thing). I then mixed in a spoon of flour, to make a roux, and cooked it for about a minute. Next, I opened up some store-bought organic veggie stock and poured a little in to liquify the mass and cool things down a bit.
I then popped this smallish amount of warmish stuff into the blender and whipped it up (lid on, of course), adding more stock if/as necessary. I put this first batch into a soup pot and put it on medium-low heat to simmer.
For the second batch, I roughly chopped up one of the cold, cooked potatoes (I left the skin on, but whatever) and put that in the blender. Then I added some of the stock and a little bit of milk (about a 3:1 ratio) until the potatoes were covered. I put the lid on and fired up the blender, adding more stock (or milk) if necessary. Once things were good and soupy, I popped in 3-4 half-strips of bacon and pulverized them. The second batch then gets mixed into the soup pot contents, and starts to heat up.
Repeat “second batch” instructions for as many potatoes (with bacon) as you have or want to turn into soup. I think I used about 4 good sized potatoes and about 1 litre of liquid (3/4 l stock + about a cup of milk) total, but use what you have or want to. Once you have all your soup blended and mixed in the pot, it should be starting to heat up nicely – you may want to turn it up just a little bit to get things going. This is when you sprinkle in a bunch of shredded cheese and melt it throughout. Give it a taste. It will probably be salty enough with the stock, but add some if it needs it. Also throw in some pepper, and maybe a bit of ground nutmeg (if you’re into that kind of thing). If you feel like to throwing in a generous spoon or two of sour cream, you could do that too. I’m a “by taste” kinda cook, so if you think it would make things better – go for it!
When the soup is all good and warm, serve it up in a bowl with a nice spoon of sour cream or a sprinkling of more cheese on top… and inhale it!
Perfect for a cold winter day! Although, I found myself wanting something to go with it, but I couldn’t figure out what that something was. Bread seemed too heavy to add… meat seemed redundant on the side… and I couldn’t think of anything else at the time. Broccoli maybe? Apple slices? A healthy salad so you’ll feel a little bit less guilty? Ideas welcome. As a side note, I ended up freezing a couple of containers of the soup, and it thawed out very nicely. So. There it is… my Simple Pierogi Soup. No hot stuff to blend. No fancy equipment necessary. Just simple, artery-blocking goodness. 😉
