Potato Soup and Homemade Bread--NYUM!

Earlier this week we had freezing rain, rain, snow, and sleet all in one afternoon.  It was a good day for soup and so I put this recipe together.  I like using fat free half n' half for the richness it gives without added fat.  We use skim milk from Brahms Dairy--they condense their skim milk a bit so it isn't as thin and not a bit blue-tinged as regular skim milk can be. 

Snowy Day Potato Soup

6 medium potatoes, peeled and chopped into bite sized pieces

2 medium carrots, quartered lengthwise and sliced

2 stalks celery, diced

1 medium/large onion, diced

2 Tbsp. vegetable oil

2 to 3 cloves minced garlic

6 slices bacon, fried crisp and crumbled

2 cups skim milk

2 and l/2 cups fat free half and half

1 teaspoon sea salt, more to taste

1 teaspoon black pepper

Place oil, carrots, celery, onion, and garlic into a stock pot, cook over medium heat until onion is softened and carrots and celery are tender crisp, about 5 minutes.  Add potatoes and cook an additional 2 to 3 minutes, stirring constantly.  Add 2 cups of water, salt, and pepper, and simmer about 7 minutes, until potatoes are nearly done.  Add milk, fat free half and half, bacon, and heat through. Taste and adjust salt to taste.   

I made a loaf of bread from my standard bread recipe.  My grandkids call it "Grammy Bread" because I make it so often.  It is egg and dairy free out of respect for their allergies.  I also use this dough to make dinner rolls and cinnamon rolls.

Grammy Rolls (or bread)

In a 2 cup glass measure stir together: 

1 cup very warm tap water

3 Tablespoons sugar

1 Tablespoon regular bread yeast

Into bread machine liner, place: 

3 cups unbleached flour

1.5 teaspoons salt

3 Tablespoons vegetable oil

When the water mixture is foamy on top, dump it all at once into the bread machine liner right on top of the flour mixture, process on dough setting.  Form dough into a loaf, let it raise about an hour until doubled in size, bake on a parchment lined rimmed baking sheet at 350 until golden brown (check at 15-18  minutes, watch closely thereafter).  My oven needs a liner or an insulated cookie sheet on the rack below to protect the loaf from getting too brown.  

Pantry Soup

Clockwise from top left:  our "pantry soup" before the noodles were completely cooked--there ended up to be LOTS of noodles, Top right:  Rebekah was longing for cinnamon rolls today and her dad sent me this photo of her watching the bread machine make the dough,  Bottom right:  this photo was taken just as the snow stopped falling today.  Sure hope it is done! Bottom left: our grandsons played on hay bales Thursday afternoon when the temperature was in the 60's, 

Last evening rain fell, temperatures dropped, and ice formed.  Early this morning snow began to fall: large fluffy, light flakes that have accumulated to about 2 inches or so.  Farmer John is out feeding cattle, and he is nursing a cold.  I thought homemade soup would be just the thing for a day like today; but what to do?  We haven't made a grocery store run in over a week!  I don't even have a box of pasta of any sort on the shelf, but I did find some lasagna noodles.  I cobbled together a soup that we ended up loving and now am not sure how I did it.  I will do my best to record the process here:

Snowy Day Pantry Soup

Place 1 box oven ready lasagna noodles into a 9 x 13 baking dish and cover with boiling, salted water (about a quart of water with about a teaspoon of salt).  

 Brown:  

1/2 pound sausage 

1 red pepper, chopped  

1 medium onion, chopped 

2 medium carrots, sliced

3 stalks celery, sliced

2 cloves garlic, minced

Add:

2 cups diced tomatoes with juice

1 cup or so chopped cooked chicken

1 quart chicken broth

1 teaspoon ground oregano

1 teaspoon ground sage

1 teaspoon dried basil

Cut the lasagna noodles into bite sized pieces and add to the soup along with the salted water...taste and be careful not to get the soup too salty, can add just enough plain boiling water for the right consistency instead of the salted water if no extra salt is needed.  You might want to add an additional quart of chicken broth--we ended up with a LOT of noodles in this soup as they cooked and expanded.  I used regular sausage in this because that is what we had on hand, but Italian sausage would be good.