Our CSA box has been full of potatoes recently. Not the Russet ones that made Idaho so popular in industrial farming. Instead, I have reached into the box to pull out oblong, and pebble sized Peruvian Purple potatoes. If anything, they are beautiful to look at as soon as one washes off all of the dirt and slice them open.
According to Cook’s Thesaurus, “These purple-fleshed potatoes have a medium starch content, so they’re good all-purpose potatoes. They lend an interesting color to mashed potatoes or potato salads, but they’re not as flavorful as other varieties. They tend to get mushy if they’re over-cooked.”
But starch content smarch content. I don’t care. They could mesmerize me all day if I let them. But i didn’t and instead pulled together the few ingredients I had to make potato soup.
I used 4 cups of milk (skim, since that’s all I had), 1 teaspoon of salt, 1 teaspoon of pepper, frozen broccoli stalks, 2 tablespoons of cornstarch, and left over steak kebobs which I cut into smaller pieces. I was not specific on how many potatoes to use, so i merely eye balled it and cut more as i thought was necessary. But I just tossed everything into my crock-pot for a couple hours and let it work it’s magic.
I thought for sure the potatoes would give me a purplish potato soup hue, instead it turned out depressingly grey which only made it more sad under the fluorescent lights of the office.
It may remind you of poor Oliver in London, or perhaps a bleak, repressive Communist society’s soup kitchen soup accompanied by a loaf of white bread. Yes, it looks like all of those things, but it is quite good and I have some fresh sourdough that goes with it.
Beat THAT Lenin!
