Bacon and Potato Soup

I don't cook much bacon, even though I think it is delicious. Crispy, delicious bacon. It goes so well with sandwiches, with stuffing, with peanut butter. I am totally willing to admit that I have before purchased that microwavable bacon because it is easy and fast and crispy without any effort on my part.

Not that the problem with cooking bacon is the effort. Rather, anything with lots of grease makes me a touch nervous. Still, when my roommate and I decided we wanted potato soup the other night, I knew that bacon would be a delicious addition.

So I sucked it up. I bought some bacon (and, man, let me tell you how hard it is to find bacon without any corn products in it...frustrating...) and set to it. I can't even remember the last time I tried to cook bacon, so, I've gotta confess that I was pretty pleased about the ease of frying. I broke the strips in half to make it more manageable and kept the heat no higher than medium. Which leads me to say - cook bacon! Not as bad as you think!


But back to the tasty soup. Once you get your crispy, non-burned, delicious bacon - you can worry about the rest of the soup. Which is to say - the hard part is already over because this is one of the easiest things I've cooked in a while.

Ingredients:

- bacon (about six pieces, cooked, crumbled)
- two baking potatoes (chopped roughly)
- one smallish leek (sliced and chopped)
- four garlic cloves (slivered, though two of them were diced)
- chicken broth (about a cup, maybe more, i used a large mug from starbucks)
- half and half
- sour cream (a few spoons)
- seasoning (salt, pepper, dash cayenne, and dill)
- carrots (three small and sliced and chopped)
- celery (two stalks, chopped)
- one/two tablespoons of flour

(i also used a splash of red wine, maybe a few tablespoons)

So you have your bacon already cooked. I used the grease from cooking and a bit of butter in a soup pot. I added the leek and garlic and sauteed for a moment and then added the carrot and celery and a little red wine. Once the carrots were slightly tender, I added the potato, some of the bacon, and broth - peppered, salted, and left it there for the potatoes to get tender.

Once everything was finished I then poured in the half and half, sour cream, and seasoned with more salt and pepper, dash of cayenne, and dill. I slowly sprinkled flour in and mixed thoroughly, until the soup was thick enough for my liking.

To serve, I sprinkled crumbled bacon on top, handed my roommate a delicious crusty french roll, and ignored the snow outside. It was crazy delicious, very thick, and just - nom nom nom.