Tasty Tuesdays: Cheesy Potato Soup

I was going to share a new recipe for a delicious ice cream dessert today. I took my dessert outside and took some pictures of it, but when I tried to get the pictures off my SD card, I found out my card was broken! So that dessert will wait for another day, and we are going to fix another recipe from my early blogging days. I did not re-take any pictures (which really needs to be done), but I cleaned up this post quite a bit and took off those huge pictures as I did not know I should resize pictures when I first started blogging.

Here is our family’s favorite recipe for Cheesy Potato Soup.

This soup is our winter comfort food! This recipe again came from my mom who made homemade soup every Wednesday in the winter. It was a cheap meal which was a “must” in my family’s strapped economy; it was an easy meal to clean-up as we always went to church on Wednesday night; and our family loved it!

I believe that a great ham stock makes or breaks potato soup. A tasty ham stock gives so much flavor to potato, bean, pea, and broccoli soups. When I cook the ham, I place the ham on a shallow rack in a 9″ x 13″ pan. Under the rack I pour some water. (The water is about 1/4″ – 1/2″ deep.)  After the ham is cooked, I keep the drippings/water from the pan for stock for one soup, and I keep the ham bone with some meat on it to cook up for another soup. So I get two soups from every ham bone. 

For the potato soup, I took the stock (this time I used my drippings,) and I added some water to it. The drippings can sometimes be a salty or strong flavor, and they need to be watered down. Plus I needed more broth for the amount of soup I wanted to make.

Next, I shredded the potatoes and a few carrots and diced one onion and minced one or two cloves of garlic and put it in the broth. I am able to use my stand mixer with the #2 shredder attachment. For years I used my Presto Salad Shooter. Of course, you can do it by hand, but I am so thankful I have modern conveniences to help me out! I like to use shredded potatoes and not cubed potatoes for the soup.

I add enough potatoes until it is very thick. The potatoes will cook down some, and I like a thick potato soup.

I cooked this until  the potatoes are tender, and then I added Velveeta cheese (or Aldis equivalent of Velveeta) that I have already cubed. Add to your own tastebuds leading :). Once the cheese is melted, the soup is ready to eat!

I don’t have specific quantities of potatoes or broth, but you can go by the recipe below if you wish. If you want a large amount of soup, then start with a bigger broth base. Add enough potatoes and carrots until the soup is very thick, making sure you stir periodically so the potatoes do not stick to the bottom of the pan. The larger pot of soup that is made will mean that you will also need more cheese at the the end. For a large pot of soup, I usually use about 1 pound of cheese.

With the leftover soup, I froze it. It will be ready for me to defrost and  eat with my Crescent Chicken Bundles that are also in the freezer. 

I have put this soup in a 5 quart ice cream pail, frozen it, and taken it to my Grandma’s for a meal in the wintertime. This soup is also great to put in a crockpot and take somewhere else. I have taken it to a funeral home for the family to eat that has to be there for many hours during a visitation. Below is a recipe that you can use as a guide. 

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Cheesy Potato Soup

Ingredients

• 9 medium potatoes (approximately 6 cups shredded
• 3 large chopped onions--I only used 1 onion and I put in a 1-2 garlic cloves minced.
• 3 chicken bouillon cubes
• 5 cups water I used ham stock instead of the water and chicken bouillon cubes

Instructions

1. Boil all until potatoes are tender. 
2. Add 24 oz. Velveeta cheese (cut into cubes) and blend until creamy (I used about one pound, 16 ounces.) 
3. Add water if too thick.

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