The Versatile Apple Of The Earth.

Potato, potatoe?

There are so many different names for them, even in the same language such as in German or should I rather say Austrian / Burgenlandish.

Erdapfel / Kartoffel / Grumpian

yet they have one thing in common...potatoes taste delicious in any shape or form. The other day we garnered ourselves a 5 kg bag of Grumpians and have been making various meals out of it for the last few weeks.

Often, my gourmet meal of choice is boiled potatoes with oodles of butter and salt and I am fortunate that the Bobster likes it too. We've also adopted a recipe from a friend of ours and now make a sort of oven roasted potato affair more often than not. Meat is hardly ever included in our culinary Kartoffel creations except now and again for a curry or roast.

Yesterday was one of those days that were cold and had us hungry despite not having a reason to be and at loose ends too. The perfect set up for eating the usual Monday culprits of chocolate, ice cream and crisps but luckily Mondays the local shop is closed so we had to make do with what was in our larder. Isn't it funny how when one is hungry the creativity is firing on all cylinders with hardly any ingredients?

I knew we had potatoes, espied some left over smoked bacon in the fridge and the easiest and quickest would be to make a soup. A Grumpian soup would be a first for me to make although I have a fond memory of tasting a plate at my parent's last year. Just frying the onions with the bacon made a delightful aroma waft through the house and if it had been enough, I would have served this for lunch straight away.

For a change I peeled the spuds and quartered them at the same time. Into the pot they went followed by cups of water and a stock cube. Making soup is so easy and often a great way to get rid of leftover bits of vegetables, bacon or potatoes. If you have a blender it is even more tasty and the odd thing a husband might normally not eat, is well hidden in the mayhem by blending everything together.

Finished off with a dash of cream and pumpkin seed oil, makes homemade soup another raison d'etre of stepping into the kitchen instead of eating out... Did I mention that eating potatoes is also extremely economical?

Biggi