Roasted Potato Soup

Tonight, I improvised a potato soup recipe off of a couple different recipes, with a few tweaks of my own. I wanted to share it with you, as it's DELICIOUS. Note that all measurements are approximate.

Roasted Potato Soup
6 Russet potatoes, washed and cut into 1" pieces (peeled if you wish, I didn't peel mine)
1 head of garlic
Extra-virgin olive oil (I think I used about 1/4-1/3 of a cup)
Kosher Salt
Fresh-ground Pepper
White wine (I think I used about 1/4 cup)
4 slices of thick-cut bacon, cut into 1" pieces
1/2 large or 1 small/medium onion, diced
3 cups chicken broth
1 cup milk
8 oz. Velveeta
1/2 cup sour cream
Shredded cheddar cheese, to add as topping

1)Preheat oven to 425 degrees (F). Put potato pieces on a shallow roasting pan. Drizzle olive oil over them, salt and pepper them, then toss to coat. Cut the top off the head of garlic so the cloves are exposed, then place in the middle of the pan and drizzle with olive oil. Bake for 25 minutes.
2) While the potatoes and garlic are roasting, cook the bacon over medium-low heat. When finished cooking to your desired texture, remove the pieces to a paper towel-covered plate until needed. Take a tablespoon or two of the bacon grease and put it in your soup pot. Add the onions to the soup pot with the grease and saute for about 5 minutes over medium heat, until onions are soft and starting to brown.
3) Remove potatoes and garlic from the oven and throw the potatoes in the soup pot. Squeeze the roasted garlic out of the skin and chop up and add that to the pot. Add the chicken broth and milk to the pot, and bring to a light boil. Reduce heat and simmer for about 10 minutes.
4) Mash up the potatoes with a masher in the soup pot to desired consistency. Throw the bacon in the pot, along with the Velveeta. Cook until the Velveeta is melted into the soup. Add the sour cream, and mix well. Salt and pepper to taste.
5) Serve the soup with shredded cheddar on top. :)

Makes about 6ish servings, but potato soup always freezes well if you're cooking for only a couple people!

Menu plan and housewifeliness

So my alarm went off at 5:30 this morning, and I've actually been a productive housewife so far today. I got my menu planned through Sunday, and I actually get to cook dinner for 6 nights in a row! I'm trying a few new recipes this week that I think are going to be FABULOUS. It's been a while since I've done much cooking around here, so it'll be nice to get some good, fresh, homemade food in our bellies. I'm also going out on a limb and trying steak again. I've generally not liked steak for my entire life, but I think I might be missing out, and the Pioneer Woman has a delicious looking recipe in her new cookbook that I think is going to be a serious treat for us. :) Without further ado, this week's menu!

Tuesday - Rib eye steak with whiskey cream sauce (The Pioneer Woman Cooks, page 166) and roasted garlic and new potatoes
Wednesday - Homemade pasta Alfredo (both noodles and sauce from scratch)
Thursday - Shrimp pasta in a foil package
Friday - White bean stew with Swiss chard and tomatoes
Saturday - Comfort meatballs (PW Cooks, page 172) and (forgive me) instant mashed potatoes
Sunday - Roasted asparagus with poached egg on toast with bacon

Man, I'm getting hungry just thinking about it! I'm also going to be whipping up a batch of chicken broth tomorrow. I still have to get the whiskey and the Swiss chard for tonight and Friday's dinners, but I'll be out running errands later, so I can pick those up then. This will be my first time ever purchasing whiskey. :p

Now I've got to finish up my laundry, switch the dishes in the dishwasher, go get my hair cut, continue sorting through my pile of randomness for Goodwill, and I should probably eat lunch sometime soon. I get to play with my camera today as well, as we've got a good-sized snowstorm headed our way. :)

Ultimate Fail Bread

The best way to kick off a new blog is with an embarrassing story, right? So why don't we start there?

Today, I got the crazy bug up my butt to bake some bread. Now mind you, I've done very little bread making in my culinary career, but a friend posted a nice easy no-knead bread recipe on her Facebook page. Can't go wrong with that, right? Right? ....RIGHT?

I got going on it, and within minutes, I was mixing up my batch of bread. My first mistake was not mixing it long enough (which I didn't realize at the time). The recipe called for it to be baked on parchment paper, but I don't do much baking, and as such don't have any parchment paper in my house. I found a package of waxed paper that said "Great for baking!" on it, and figured I'd be alright.

(Now, at this point, some of you might be snickering that I'd make such a rookie mistake and can already tell what's coming. If that's the case, quit laughing, keep reading, and stop being an asshole. Kthxbai.)

So I lay out the waxed paper, and shape my loaves of bread on top. Let it rise for 20 minutes, then pop those bad boys in the oven! I go back into the computer room, and within seconds, I smell something that reminds me of my Grandma's house at Christmas. (No, not my mom's mom, that makes the greatest food ever; my dad's mom. The one that makes sauerkraut hotdish for every holiday and burns dumplings. Yeah, that Grandma.) I race back out to the kitchen and see smoke pouring out of the oven. I pull the door open and yank out the pans, one of which has very obviously singed edges all over the waxed paper. Before I can get the fan going and the windows opened, the smoke detector in the hallway starts beeping, soon followed by the one in the bedroom. Dammit. I got the fan turned on, the smoke detectors turned off, and went back to my lumps of dough. I sprayed the pans with Pam and flopped the "loaves" back onto the pans and peeled the waxed paper off of them.

"Still good! I can work with this!" I thought. I popped them back in the oven, and baked them for the remaining time. At the end of the baking time, I pulled them out of the oven....and I had bricks. More fail. I tried everything I could to make them edible, but it wasn't going to happen.

I will definitely try this recipe again, and learn from my mistakes this time, but this particular instance was just reeking of baking FAIL.