Fall AND Soup and The Recipe

WHAT is it about fall or what feels like fall, that you think soup? I guess in the heat of the summer all you want is something cool.

While at the library last week I found a couple diabetic cookbooks and were looking through them when I spied a potato soup recipe in one of them. I LOVE soups! My DH (Dear Husband) isn't wild about soup BUT will eat it on occasion. I fix it now and then because I love the stuff and my thinking is, I like to have what I like sometimes to. ;)

For the past few days the weather around here has been cooler. NOT that it's suppose to STAY that way for any length of time. But around here a little cool weather is better than none at all. So it has me thinking soup. So I fixed that nice potato soup today and had it cooking most the day in the crock pot.

I started out this morning hunting my frozen chicken broths that I put in the freezer when I boil chicken for various reasons. I needed 5 cups of water the recipe said but it called for bouillon cubes which I don't use because of the sodium. I know they make them with less sodium now but just have never started buying them since I figured out this way. Anyway I got out 2 small bowls of my chicken stock and 1 large bowl thinking okay, this will be enough chicken stock/broth. My plans were to put the stock into a large pot and get it defrosted so it would be ready to use when I got all the tators peeled and diced up. So I put it in the large pot on the stove and got it started thawing. Then later went back to it and saw it had pieces of chicken in it. I was like oh, there must have been some small pieces of chicken in the bottom of the broth and I just left them in it for seasoning. So I went on about peeling the tators. THEN later when I went back to check on the melting stock, I realized what this was! lol It was left overs from my rotisserie chicken that I had boiled and put up for seasoning foods or for seasoning veggies or something like that. I thought, hummmmmm this might really be good 'cause the rotisserie chicken is smoked and I bet that would be good in the potato soup, so I left it.

I got all the ingredients put together and decided to get it started on the stove in the large pot so it would get cooked for our dinner. Then I put it in the crock pot and let it simmer for the rest of the hours and that way I didn't have to keep it stirred from sticking. As last time I forgot to get a pic of it. Plus my plans were to have company over to help us eat it. Had called the company and they didn't answer their phone but figured they were outside and just left a message for them on their answering machine. My plans were to really fix it up nice for them. Had taken out some of my china we don't use much and she's never seen. Got out the pretty bowls for the soup, then got out saucers for their crackers. I also got out the cups and saucers for some coffee or hot tea afterwards. The recipe called for you to dice up chives for putting on the top of the soup when you put it in your bowls. You put shredded cheese and then the chives. So that was the plan.
Anyway they didn't get our message on the machine, lol, and they came over on their golf cart (they live pretty close to us) bringing back some DVDs we had loaned them. They had their grand kids with them and couldn't stay, BUT still didn't know we had called them. lol I was busy on the computer when they came and they didn't come in and DH had said something to them about them eating with us and I guess they thought he was just being nice. Talk about miscommunication! LOL We had planned yesterday, for my DH and her DH to shoot some target practice here this evening anyway. So DH tells me after they've left they wanted us to come over there since they had their grand kids with them. They were just riding them around on the golf cart and bringing us t he DVDs. So we called them back and asked had they eaten yet and they hadn't thank goodness. So what did we do, yep, we took dinner to them! ;) Except for all my china, we did leave that home.

Man it WAS GOOD to! Even though I say so myself. ;) We all eat 2 bowls of it and we have left overs for tomorrows lunch.

Here's the recipe in case anyone is interested in it. Although I didn't really do mine like this one. I just basically used it as a guide. I did add lots of garlic to mine as well as cooked some chives in it. Also since I didn't have the bouillon cubes in mine I had less sodium and even used low sodium crackers as well.



Potato Soup

Makes 10 servings- Ideal slow cooker size is 4 quarts

6 potatoes, peeled and cubed
2 leeks, chopped
2 onions, chopped
1 rib celery, sliced
4 chicken bouillon cubes
1 TBSP. dried parsley flakes
5 cups water
pepper to taste
3 TBSP. light, soft tub margarine
12-oz. can fat free evaporated milk
chopped chives

1.) Combine all ingredients except milk and chives in slow cooker.
2.) Cover, cook on low 10-12 hours, on high 3-4 hours. Stir in milk during last hour.
3.) If desired, mash potatoes before serving.
4.) Garnish with chives.

Variations:
1.) Add one carrot, sliced to vegetables before cooking.
2.) Instead of water and bouillon cubes, use 4-5 cups chicken stock.


Exchange list values:
Carb 1.5
Basic Nutritional Values:
Cal. 123
Cal. from fat 14
Total fat 2 gm
Sat. fat 0.1 gm
polunsat. fat 0.4 gm
monounsat fat 0.8 gm
cholesterol 0 mg.
sodium 447 mg.
total carb 23 gm.
dietary fiber 2 gm.
sugars 7 gm.
protien 5 gm