Our family has a truly killer recipe for potato soup. Oh, yes, it's chock full of fat and cholesterol, but dear God in heaven is it ever fabulous. My college roommates and I (in the pre-lactose-free days) used to eat healthy all week so we could make ourselves
sick on a full stock pot of that gloriousness. Oh, yes... *reminisces*
Ahem. Anyway, obviously the exact recipe is not going to work so well these days. It breaks my heart, yes, buuuuuuut... Mom's visiting this week while their friend is working on my house, so she's attempting to adjust the recipe for my stomach to handle, and substituting turkey meat for ham to get rid of the rest of our turkey. I'll definitely post the adjusted recipe this evening with the verdict.
For my still-able-to-consume-dairy reading folks, here's the original recipe (it goes back at least two generations):
4 medium-sized russet potatoes chopped
3 large carrots, chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped
1 onion, chopped (I usually don't use the onion, but it works either way)
2 cans of cream of ______ soup (choose whichever you like)
1 stick of butter
1 can of evaporated milk
Garlic, salt to taste
Chopped pre-cooked/baked ham, roughly a large handful or two
1 large package of shredded cheese, usually cheddar, amount to taste, or half of a block of cheddar
Boil the potatoes, carrots, celery, and onion in water until tender. Drain. Return veggies to stock pot and add liquid ingredients with butter until it just starts to boil. Decrease heat to low or medium-low so it doesn't boil over, then add cheese and seasonings gradually until the cheese melts and the milky broth is a soft yellow color--not vivid yellow, but more yellow than off-white. You may wish to add more milk to thin the recipe or more cheese to make it taste sharper. Most of the ingredients here are of the "add a pinch or a handful of...." variety, so adjust to suit your tastes.
Our adjusted recipe, made mostly the same way, will include not draining the veggies, using
Lactaid milk (if you have a full dairy allergy, using
non-sweetened soy, rice, or almond milk should be fine--but do NOT use a sweetened variety... I made that mistake when I wrote the recipe down wrong the first time and used condensed instead of evaporated milk. It was horrible!). Instead of canned cream-of-____ soup, we're using a
non-dairy recipe from Food.com (
http://www.food.com/recipe/non-dairy-cream-of-mushroom-soup-substitute-107359), and we're going to use standard salted butter--it usually doesn't bother me. If it does bother you, use a
non-dairy margarine or shortening like the linked cream of mushroom soup calls for. We're also using the
Almond cheddar "cheese" from yesterday's photo instead of standard cheddar, and we're thickening the recipe by adding
tofu (about half a package) with the milk, so it behaves more like evaporated milk.
Pictures and review coming tonight!
