Kicked Up Creamy Potato Soup

My sister loves potato soup so I thought I would take a chance and make it. turns out, it's easy and way more DELISH when it's fresh. She said it was better than the soup she buys every week, so score one for me!

The best part of this recipe, for me anyway, is that you can rough chop everything--thanks to my new hand blender I got for the holidays, everything will get blended together and no one will notice your lopsided chops of potatoes!

First I sauteed some onions with GOOD extra virgin olive oil for about 5-7 minutes

then I added two chopped carrots and let them simmer for an additional 5 minutes. I added in a teaspoon of cayenne pepper, a sprinkle of thyme + parsley, and a little salt and pepper.

I rough chopped 4 large Idaho potatoes, and added them to the pot. I poured in about 1/4 cup of dry white wine and let the potatoes absorb the flavor of the wine.

Once the wine is absorbed, I added 4 cups of chicken stock and a teaspoon of red pepper flakes. Let simmer for about 15 minutes, to allow the potatoes to suck in all the flavors.

Once the potatoes are cooked through, I added in some chopped freshly cooked bacon, about 6 slices. Chop up the remaining slices and reserve for garnish.

Then I removed the pot from the heat, used my hand blender and went to town.

If you don't have a hand blender you do batches by using a food processor. After the potatoes were the consistency that I wanted, I poured in two cups of half and half, and another cup of chicken stock. I mixed it all together and voila. A great soup!

I HIGHLY recommend serving this with a wallop of sour cream and a little sprinkle of some of that leftover chopped bacon. :) I hardly had any leftovers.