My email was down for two days

[commodorified]

In which time the soup post got nearly 500 spam comments. I have despaired of deleting them all and deleted the entry, so here’s the recipe again:

Chop 6-8 potatoes and 3-4 onions (depending on size. )
Put potatoes to soak in salted water.
In a heavy pot with a lid, combine onions and a generous knob of butter, turn to medium-low and cover.
Go watch an episode of Elementary*
Drain potatoes and add to pot with a large handful of frozen mirepoix (diced onion, celery and carrots), one box of chicken or vegetable broth, salt, pepper, tarragon, savoury, and dill to taste.
Turn to medium, replace lid, go watch another episode.
Add 2 cups potato flakes to thicken and two cups of milk or one cup of milk and one of cream. Turn to low.
Go watch a third episode. Put it on pause halfway through for long enough to stir the soup.
Put a loaf of frozen bread in the oven on 300F while you grate 1 cup emmenthal or similar cheese and fry 1/2 lb bacon to crisp. Sprinkle bacon and cheese on top of soup and eat, possibly while watching more Elementary.

*you can watch something else if you want, as long as it's roughly 45 minutes long.

Comments

[graydon]

Boo, spam.

Has your email service got Namespro.ca back of it somewhere?

[pameladean]

I now think of it as Elementary Soup. Thank you for the information that it's fine with just broth and no cream, but the cream kind sounds SO LUXURIOUS that I am still contemplating ways to imitate it.

P.

[ell]

And I wander in on one of my infrequent drive-bys and find a soup recipe \o/

I can’t wait to try it :-) thank goodness for spam

[commodorified]

It’s pretty awesome. I wish I could be of more assistance.

[commodorified]

Possibly? Shall ask Ian. For now, anon commenting is no more as this post promptly garnered 9 of the same.

[fajrdrako]

I hope to make this at the earlier opportunity. Elementary included.

[graydon]

Wretchedly persistent creatures, spammers.

I asked because Namespro is my mail provider, they're based somewhere in the vicinity of where you live, and they've been having DDoS problems for weeks. Sometime last weekend the response to same involved sudden changes to the mail setup at their end, which broke my email setup and led to a learning experience or two. So perhaps that was what had happened to you.

[pameladean]

I think I may have forgotten that this is cooking for people who don't, and that this substitution problem is rather the opposite. I have a plan, however.

P.

[princessofgeeks]

This sounds great! Can I ask what is the benefit of soaking the potatoes first?

[indywind]

I think it gets the salt into them so they are not bland, without having to make the broth extra salty and hope for the best.

[commodorified]

Mostly to make sure they’re clean. To be honest, though, I do it that way because Gran did it that way: a short soak with salt in the water in case anything had hitched a ride in from the garden. A quick rinse is fine, really.

[commodorified]

That too, actually, although see below.

[princessofgeeks]

Thank you; that makes sense.

Flour?

[james_g4clf]

If you're not worried about gluten (and you put bread in the oven) I'd suggest blending 30-50gm (2-3 tbsp) flour with a little water and adding and bringing back to the boil just before serving. This discourages the soup from separating into thinner liquid and sludge on the bottom.