Potato Soup

So when you start with someone else's recipe how many changes do you have to make before it stops being their recipe and becomes yours?  Is it just a few changes?  Does it need to be so many that it's no longer recognizable as the original recipe?  I'm not sure what the correct answer is and as such I'm going to go with it needs enough changes that it's no longer recognizable to be on the safe side.  I don't believe my potato soup meets that criteria.  As such I'm going to give you a link to the recipe that I start with and then discuss the changes that I've made to it.

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/perfect-potato-soup/

So the first change I make is the bacon.  I use a whole package of bacon.  When I lived in Wisconsin my bacon of choice was a jalapeno bacon that Hy-Vee sold.  Since moving back to the South I've found that I can sometimes get a similar bacon from Whole Foods, but it's not very consistent.  Sometimes their jalapeno bacon is great and sometimes it doesn't have any jalapeno flavor at all.  With that in mind most of the time down here I use the Kroger brand pepper bacon.

The next change is after I cook the entire package of bacon I don't take it all out of the pot or drain the grease.  I leave about 1/4 of it in the pot with all the grease.  Yes I do know that makes it less healthy, but it also makes it more tasty.  Before you get to the point of removing 3/4 of the bacon it will look like you have destroyed your pot.  Bits of bacon and fond will seem burned to the bottom of it.  I wondered if I was going to have to throw my pot away the first time I did it.  When I added the first set of vegetables and scraped against the bottom with my wooden spoon while stirring a lot of it came off.  Then when I added the broth and did the same thing with the spoon most if not all of the rest of it would come off.  If I missed any here it usually worked it's way into the soup as it cooked and left my pot easy to clean in the end.

With the first vegetable mix that you put into the pot I find the biggest onion that I can.  If you don't like onion as much as I do her medium onion or even a small one might be more to your liking.  I also like to add a spicy pepper or 2 at this stage.  2 jalapenos or serranos are great as is a single scotch bonnet.  Just keep your spice preferences in mind here.

When adding the potatoes you are supposed to add the salt, pepper, and cajun spice.  I use a little less salt than it calls for because I use a lot more cajun seasoning then it calls for.  In fact I use 2 whole tablespoons of Penzeys Cajun seasoning which has salt as the second ingredient on the list.  As a result I feel like less salt is not a problem.

Like most things that call for broth I use Better than Bouillon.  In my opinion it has more flavor than any of the other store bought broths.  I've also lately started adding a teaspoon of Better than Bouillon Garlic for a bit of extra flavor here.

Finally instead of taking some of the soup out and pureeing the rest I just use an immersion blender and puree most of it in the pot.  I like the smoother texture and the lower amount of work that method leads to.

I've also made a batch where I used blue potatoes instead of normal potatoes and parsnips instead of carrots.  It wasn't quite as good, but it was still good and the color was nice.