Potato Soup

Sometimes, I wonder about myself...

Last night, while driving home, I asked Kev how Potato Soup sounded for supper.  We had a cold front come through, and the temperature was 59 when we pulled into town.  It just felt like a nice, crisp, fall day, perfect for warm Tater soup.  So, we stopped at the Market because I needed some cream.  Kev likes a rich Potato Soup, and I didn't have any cream.

We got home, and I started peeling potatoes (because I didn't have any canned potatoes) and started cooking the soup.  I decided to cook the potatoes in chicken broth, for some extra flavor.  So, I went to the pantry to get a jar of chicken broth I'd canned last winter.  Unfortunately, I saw only a quart jar of broth.  I didn't want to use that much, so I kept looking for a pint jar.  Not finding one, I looked in the other pantry for a store bought can of broth.  No luck.  So, I grabbed the quart jar and dumped it in with the potatoes and carrots and started them boiling.

As they cooked, I'd test the potatoes to see if they were cooked by pulling one out and taking a bite off it.  "Hum, I thought, this potato tastes a little sweet."  But, I let them continue cooking as I prepared the bacon bits and got the cheese sandwiches ready to grill.  When I tasted them again, they were still a little sweet tasting, and I decided it was the carrot, that, you know, maybe our home-grown carrots were just sweet enough to make everything taste sweet to me.  I then dumped in the cream and went to do some cleaning up while the soup finished up.

That's when I grabbed the jar to put it in the sink.  I picked it up, sniffed it, and thought, "Now, that doesn't smell like chicken broth."  I tasted the sediment in the bottom of the jar and suddenly remembered the jar of Rhubarb Juice I'd made in May.   That lonely quart jar of juice...

Crap!  That's what I used.   Not Chicken Broth, but Rhubarb Juice!  I'd cooked my soup in Juice!

So, I carried my beautiful looking soup over to the sink, got out a strainer, and dumped it all in the strainer.  I gave the potatoes a quick rinse, and put them back in the rinsed pot and back on the stove.  I added milk (no more cream) and added some butter and the bacon bits.  Then I had Kevin come eat.

It was edible.  Still sweet, but edible.  Sort of.

Kev did a better job of eating his soup than I did. It just simply didn't taste right!

 I felt so stupid!  I was mad at myself for wasting a cup of cream and for wasting my juice and for not checking anyway the contents of my jar before pouring it into the pot.  How long have I been cooking?  Apparently, not long enough.

So, this weekend, I hope to can more broth, or at least buy some so next time, I don't act like a bonehead in the kitchen and create a disaster.