Sailing Takes Me Away

On the good ship, Deviled Egg.....(sings wistfully). Wow, my first post about food. A big departure for my much neglected blog. An online contest for soup recipes and I came up with one. Essentially, it's a potato and mushroom soup with bacon in it. I thought to myself, "What food is best, what food does anyone with half a palate like?" Well, the answer is always bacon. If you don't like bacon, move on. Go live in a cave and eat lettuce. No doubt, you've noticed the deviled egg that is slowly sinking into my pottage. Ha! "Full speed ahead! Damn the cholesterol! Time to scuttle your hunger!" It's a deviled egg pirate ship! It actually turned out to be a very good soup; am I allowed to say that? It's rich and yummy. It would be a great winter time soup on one of those cold, rainy days we have down here in the South.

Here's what you'll need to make this thing:

• 4lbs chopped and peeled potatoes (you choose the variety)
• 1 huge leek, also chopped
• 2 med. shallots, minced
• 2oz. chanterelle mushrooms minced
• 4 cups of H20
• 4 cups of veg. broth ( I can't wait to try beef broth)
• 1 cup of half and half
• 1 tsp pepper
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 Tsp Bacon Salt http://www.baconsalt.com
• 8-10 strips of bacon (I cannot recall how many I ate while cooking)
• White Truffle Oil

Now, here's how to make it:

1. Fry up the bacon; all of it. Make sure you get it nice and crunchy. Save this bacon for later. More importantly, save the grease from the bacon.
2. Heat the bacon grease in a stock pot over medium heat.
3. Add the leeks and shallots, saute for a couple of minutes.
4. Now, add the stock, water, potatoes and chantrelles, simmer for 45 minutes
5. Find your potato masher.
6. Mash dem taters, not too much, leave some little pieces.
7. add salt, bacon salt, pepper, simmer for 10 minutes.
8. Now some fun, puree about half the soup in a blender and put back in the stock pot.
9. Turn off heat and stir in the half and half.
10. Hopefully, at this point, there's still some bacon left. It's okay to have a piece or two, damn it's so good. Chop the bacon and put it in a food processor to make some bacon bits. It's got to be crunchy bacon or this won't work so hot.
11. Ladle soup into bowl, drizzle on a few drops of truffle oil and top with bacon bits.
12. Eat soup.
13. Hoard rest of soup for later or share with friends and family. Perhaps a homeless person or the family pet.

*Side note: Make your own deviled eggs, I didn't want to waste space boring you with how to make a deviled egg. Though, I'll say that adding bacon bits to a deviled egg is an awesome thing!