You say potatoe, I say...

Virginia Willis' Potato and Cheddar Soup
Virginia Willis
Serves 6 to 8

2 tablespoons vegetable or canola oil
1 onion, chopped
1 carrot, diced
1 stalk celery, diced
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 teaspoon freshly picked thyme leaves
3 tablespoons all purpose flour
1 quart (4 cups) homemade chicken stock or reduced fat low sodium chicken broth
3 cups whole milk
4 large russet potatoes, peeled and diced (about 1 3/4 pounds)
3 cups packed freshly grated sharp cheddar cheese (about 12 ounces)
Tabasco, to taste
Coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper
Freshly snipped chives, for garnish

Heat oil in heavy large pot over medium heat. Add onion, carrot, celery, garlic, and thyme. Season with salt and pepper. Sauté until vegetables begin to soften, about 5 minutes. Sprinkle flour over and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes. Gradually whisk in stock, then milk. Add potato and bring soup to boil. Reduce heat and simmer soup until potato is tender, about 20 minutes.

Add cheese 1/3 cup at a time, stirring until melted and smooth after each addition. Tasted and adjust for seasoning with Tabasco, salt and pepper. Sprinkle with chives and serve immediately.

After the kids panned the squash soup I made from Ms. Willis' recipe, I thought we'd better give her recipes another shot with our patented kid-O-rate system. Ok, to be perfectly honest, I cheated a bit here - I knew the kids would love this soup. Potatoes. Cheese. Slam-dunk. And I wasn't disappointed, they did in fact love it. Some of the other soups on her website look great too, but if I serve the kids 'Cream of Exotic Mushroom' soup, I'll have a revolt on my hands. I might get away with the lamb stew some day when I have more time to cook, though.

I managed to not curdle the cheese, which is the bane of all cheese soup recipes. The Tabasco added a different, milder sort of kick than ground cayenne, which is what I normally would've reached for. I also served a little grated gruyere, left over from the French Onion debacle of a few days ago.

We again failed to get a good picture of the soup - someone left the camera on and ran down the battery. Ok, not someone. Me. I admit it.

Kid ratings:

Christopher Robin
Collin
Isaac	X "A hundred"
Annette	X "Ten million"

Dinner rolls would've been a great addition, but I didn't get them started in time, so instead we had biscuits. Nom nom nom.

Southern Biscuits
Alton Brown
2 cups flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons shortening
1 cup buttermilk, chilled

Directions

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Using your fingertips, rub butter and shortening into dry ingredients until mixture looks like crumbs. (The faster the better, you don't want the fats to melt.) Make a well in the center and pour in the chilled buttermilk. Stir just until the dough comes together. The dough will be very sticky.

Turn dough onto floured surface, dust top with flour and gently fold dough over on itself 5 or 6 times. Press into a 1-inch thick round. Cut out biscuits with a 2-inch cutter, being sure to push straight down through the dough. Place biscuits on baking sheet so that they just touch. Reform scrap dough, working it as little as possible and continue cutting. (Biscuits from the second pass will not be quite as light as those from the first, but hey, that's life.)

Bake until biscuits are tall and light gold on top, 15 to 20 minutes.

I went all-butter instead of using shortening. I think shortening makes for flakier biscuits, but I was in a hurry, and hey...butter.