Potato Soup

I seldom follow recipes as I cook. Most of the time I see what I have in the fridge and pantry and throw something together. This could involve home-made leftovers, canned goods, frozen food, or the doggie bag from Saturday's dinner out. If I'm lucky, the resulting dish turns out well and I can call it dinner.

Once recent evening I did my usual fridge inventory and discovered a container of mashed potatoes. I've never been a huge fan of leftover potatoes - I think they taste funny. Stale. So if I have to eat them, I like to disguise them with lots of flavors. I poked around some more and found three cans of hominy in the cupboard. Three. I suppose I had forgotten that we had some and bought more. And more still. So I had hominy and potatoes. Because my mind works in mysterious ways, I immediately thought of soup. Because it was 62 degrees outside and it's always fun to eat hot soup when it's warm outside. Like I said - mysterious.

We had fresh tarragon and thyme in the house. Despite my not particularly liking thyme, I had bought a live plant to use in a recipe I was testing with my new Sous Vide Supreme (more on that eventually) and it's been growing nicely in the dining room window. The tarragon was a back-up herb, in case the thyme died before I had a chance to use it.

Once I tasted my soup creation - if you're following, that would be potatoes, hominy, tarragon, and thyme so far - I dumped in some smoked paprika, too. Why the hell not? And to add protein (cuz Mr Minx needs his protein), I utilized one of the several packages of chicken sausage that occupied the freezer.

Sounds really weird, the resulting dish was also really good. Even if it was too warm to eat soup.

Mashed Potato and Other Stuff Soup

1 onion, thinly sliced
olive oil
pinch salt
2 cups mashed potatoes
1 can yellow hominy
1 tablespoon chopped tarragon
1 teaspoon fresh thyme
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
2 tablespoons flour
1 quart chicken stock
1 pack chicken sausage in your favorite flavor (we like spinach and feta), cut into chunks
salt and pepper

In a soup pot or dutch oven, cook onion in about 2 tablespoons of olive oil and a pinch of salt over medium heat until translucent. Stir in potatoes, hominy, and seasonings. Sprinkle on flour and stir into potato mixture. Pour in stock, turn up the heat, and bring to a boil. Turn down heat and simmer for 30 minutes.

While soup is cooking, sauté sausage chunks in a bit of olive oil until browned on all sides.

Serve soup in large bowls with a handful of sausage stirred in.

Posted by theminx on Minxeats.com.