Loaded Baked Potato Soup

What is is about potatoes that make them so satisfying as comfort food? It's got to be the dense starchiness. It gives a sense of solid fullness, and it also turns from bland starchiness to sweet on your tongue as you eat it. Add salt to that, as many of use do with potatoes, and you get that double-whammy of sweet and salty.

Baked potatoes in particular serve as a vehicle for other lovely flavors and textures, especially creamy. The smoothness of the the fat in butter and cheese is really one of the more simple and sublime parts of enjoying foods, and the main reason I could never sustain veganism. Cheese, sour cream, butter on a baked potato - hardly makes your waistline happy, but it certainly results in happy tummy syndrome.

So, what could be more satisfying than a loaded baked potato? Making it into a soup.

This is a great recipe to deal with leftover baked potatoes - as if there could even be such a thing - or you could do what I did and bake a potato for the express purpose of making this soup. You'll thank me.

Loaded Baked Potato Soup

Ingredients:

• 1 russet potato
• ¾ cup leeks
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 tablespoon flour
• ½ teaspoon salt 
• pinch of pepper
• ¼ teaspoon granulated garlic or garlic powder
• ½ teaspoon dill
• 2 cups milk
• ½ cup shredded cheddar cheese
• crumbled bacon
• shredded cheddar
• sour cream

Directions:

1. Bake a russet potato for an hour at 400 F. Take out and let cool. Then scrape out the potato and mash up with a fork. You'll have about 1 cup. You can used a leftover baked potato if you have one lingering in your fridge.
2. Meanwhile, saute ¾  cup leeks over olive oil or some sort of fat (I used a smidge of butter) until soft. Then add 1 heaping tablespoon of flour and stir until it's all mixed in, about 2 minutes.
3. Add ½ t salt, a pinch of pepper, ¼ t granulated garlic or garlic powder and ½ t dill.
4. Pour in 2 cups of milk and heat over low heat, stirring constantly, until mixture has thickened (about 10 minutes). 
5. Puree it with a stick blender or in small batches in a regular blender if you want a uniformly smooth texture, otherwise, enjoy the rustic texture.
6. Add ½ cup shredded cheese (I used an extra-sharp white cheddar) and stir until the cheese melts. Taste to adjust seasoning - this soup can really take a lot of salt before it's noticeable.
7. Serve in a bowl garnished with your favorite baked potato toppings. I had shredded cheddar, crumbled bacon and sour cream.

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