Lunch At Fireside

In a previous post, I told how here in Crestline a couple of days ago the weather changed drastically, taking us from languid summer to chilly winter. Hard rain and strong winds lashed through the night yesterday. and when I looked out the windows in the back of the house this morning, I saw that every blossom on our fruit trees has been ripped off, save for one. The pear, plum, and peach trees are bare of flowers; the apple tree that yesterday was a mass of white flowers today has a single bloom. Drizzle and fog have played the skies all day,

Definitely, it was soup weather. I prepared the ingredients, soon had a pot of potato soup simmering on my cook top, and it was at that time I decided it would be neat if Jerry and I ate our lunch in the living room before the leaping fire that roared in the fireplace. I set in place a small, lightweight table and two chairs, selected neat soup bowls and pretty napkins. Jerry grinned.

I had a little issue with preparing the soup, not having the celery I usually add. I did have a package of Knorr spinach soup/dip mix that I thought might be a good addition. In a cast-iron skillet, I crisply cooked about 1/3 pound of bacon, then setting that aside, I browned 1/2 medium sized chopped onion in the bacon drippings. Into the soup pot I placed peeled, chopped potatoes that I covered with water, the spinach mix, and the onions. Seasoned with salt, pepper, and Tony Chachere’s Creole seasoning. After mixture had simmered so that the potatoes were almost tender, I added one can of evaporated milk, letting the soup continue to simmer very slowly. The soup was delicious, made even better when Jerry and I added crumbled crisp bacon and grated cheddar cheese to our bowls of steaming potato soup.