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Sunday, September 18, 2011

Mashed Potato Soup with Roasted Garlic



When I made the mashed potatoes yesterday, I knew there was going to be a lot left over. Normally I'd go ahead and reheat the potatoes and eat them on the side of the fried chicken. This time though, I had a plan to reinvent my leftover potatoes into a new dish. I'm quite proud of this as it is so outside-the-box for me. If you have a small household and tend to cook a boatload of mashed potatoes because cooking a small quantity will take about the same amount of time like I do, you might dig this.

Mashed Potato Soup with Roasted Garlic
adapted from Epicurious

2 tbsp unsalted butter
1/2 c minced onion
1 small rib of celery including the leaves, chopped fine
1 carrot, grated coarse
2 c chicken stock (from Better Than Bouillon)
1/4 tsp dried rosemary, crushed in a mortar and pestle
2 c mashed potatoes
1 tsp white-wine vinegar
green onion, for garnish if desired

Melt butter in a large saucepan. Cook the onion, celery, and carrot in the butter
over moderately low heat, stirring, until the vegetables are tender.

Meanwhile squeeze roasted garlic into a bowl and mash.

Stir the garlic into the tender vegetables.
This was a lot pastier than I had anticipated it would be; stirring the garlic into the onions, celery and carrots didn't happen so much as sticking them to the garlic ball.

Stir in the stock and the rosemary; bring the mixture to a boil.

Whisk in the potatoes, a little at a time.

Bring the soup to a boil while whisking, and stir in the vinegar, and salt and pepper to taste.

Dish into serving bowls and garnish with green onions if desired.


If you had the foresight, a salad would've gone well with this soup. But the soup? Oh yeah, really good. So good, I was sort of kicking myself for not using all of the remaining mashed potatoes by doubling this recipe. Had I doubled it, I would've been able to report later on how well the soup freezes. That'll happen another time.

The soup was thick and just a little chunky with vegetables, which I liked very much. The garlic was more than an essence and fairly prominent, so keep that in mind if you aren't a garlic fanatic. If you prefer a thinner soup, simply use more stock. The chunkiness, if you aren't into that, could be overcome by transferring the soup into a blender or simply blending in the pot with one of those hand-held blenders I don't have (but seriously considered when I was at Costco not too long ago).

Overall, I was surprised by how satisfying the results were. Definitely going to do this again.

Cost:

  • butter: $0.07
  • onion: $0.25
  • celery: $0.17
  • carrot: $0.15
  • roasted garlic: $1.50
  • chicken stock: $0.26
  • mashed potatoes: $0.96
  • green onion, for garnish if desired: $0.30

Total: $3.66 or $0.92 for each of four generous servings.


2 comments:

Raso said...

This Mashed Potato Soup with Roasted Garlic looks really delicious, I will certainly try to produce one by myself, maybe this week. Soup is good for stomach problems.

Cheers.

The Cook said...

Thanks Raso! I imagine soup would be good for stomachs as they should be easily digested. Good luck with your soup -- I hope you enjoy it as much as I liked this one!