CHEESY POTATO SOUP

This is my favorite potato soup. I like regular potato soup, but cheesy potato soup is delicious! It's best of course on a cold day, but this soup actually shines on the 2nd day. Left-overs day. You should be able to even see the difference in the bowls of soup. Here's a picture of a yummy bowl of cheesy potato soup on the day I made it. It's nice. It's flavorful. It's kind of a thick soup, you know, not runny like chicken broth, but somewhat thick.


Then here's a picture of a bowl of this very same soup dipped up the following day.
Sitting overnight in the frig it has thickened WAY up. And, all the flavors of sauted onion, garlic, & celery have melded perfectly. Notice how the spoon is standing strait up in the bowl!
And if you don't like it THAT thick, lol, you can stir in some milk.

And one more thing... it's kind of neat how I got this recipe. I got it at a garage sale! LOL
Probably 15 years ago or so, I bought a plastic red recipe box at a yard sale. And it was about half full of some pre-printed recipe cards (I think they were campbell's recipes, but not sure). But it also had some old hand written recipes in there too. I took it up to the lady & asked her if this was a mistake. I didn't want somebody to lose these recipes if they hadn't meant for it to be in the sale. She assured me that she put them in the sale on purpose & the box of recipes was 25 cents. TWENTY-FIVE CENTS! :)
I remember having a lot of fun going thru them. And, that's also where I got my recipe for something called country steak. It's round steak cooked in cream of celery soup. (so I bet those pre-printed recipes were campbell's!)
Anyway, this recipe for Cheesy Potato Soup was on one of the handwritten cards. And it looked pretty old to me, & was written in writing that looks like an older person wrote it, like someone's grandmother. It's probably one of my all time favorite recipes, but definitely my favorite soup recipe! The only change I made to it is that I DOUBLE it. Doubling this recipe feeds a family of 4 for 2 days. The day you make it is great, but the left-over day is out of this world! And usually, there's enough left over to fill a cool-whip bowl & put in the freezer for a rainy-day lunch.

CHEESY POTATO SOUP
1 quart pared, diced potatoes
2 c. water
1 1/2 t. salt
1/2 t. pepper
1/2 c. diced onion
2 stalks of diced celery
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 c. butter
3 T. flour
3 c. hot milk
2 c. shredded cheddar cheese
paprika

Cook potatoes in water with salt & pepper until tender. Saute onions, celery, & garlic in butter. Then blend in the flour. Add hot milk, stirring constantly until thick & smooth. Meanwhile, when potatoes are done, smash them up with a potato masher.
(The 1st time I made this I couldn't believe you didn't drain the water. But you don't.)
Just mash them until there are still plenty of chunks of potato, but some thickness too, if that makes any sense. Mine looks like chunky mashed potatoes.) Also add the 2 cups of cheese & stir until melted.
Now add the potato mixture to the sauted mixture. (or the sauted to the potatoes...which ever pan is the largest! lol) Stir well, bring to a simmer, & taste to see if it needs more salt or pepper or any other seasoning. Garnish with paprika.

Also, you can omit the celery or garlic if you don't like these flavors (we LOVE them). And this last time I made it, I forgot to buy celery, so i added about 1/2 t. celery seeds while sauting the onions & it worked fine.
I hope you try it & enjoy it as much as we do!

:)