My roommates and I decided that this month we would each make a dish that we have never made before. Since I don't cook a whole lot, the possibilities for me were endless! We have been a little late with our dishes as it is getting towards the end of April now. I made mine last Monday and it was the first one. The boys better get on their dishes asap. There aren't too many days left in April!Anywho, the dish I made is called Baked Potato Soup. After I took a cooking class in high school, I decided that I wanted to become the potato dish queen. This never happened, but I still hold a soft spot in my heart for potatoes. I even bought a book of all potato dish recipes called More Than Mashed. Har. Anyway, I was shopping with the roomies at Ralphs one time and saw this recipe for Baked Potato Soup on their recipe carousel. It looked dericious in the picture. It didn't turn out quite as I imagined it would but it was still edible. I think I bought the wrong kind of potatoes. A poor queen, I would be.
As you may notice, that first picture is not of potatoes or anything soup-like. I had also made garlic bread mostly from scratch (I don't know how to make bread). I had a good recipe from when I made garlic bread a long time ago, but I don't know where it went, so I just Googled one where I could incorporate the oregano I have been growing but have had no particular use for (Look! I even added some for garnish!). It turned out awesome, even though I was careless and did not realize that I combined two different recipes while shopping for ingredients. I mostly used this recipe but I guess I confused it with another one prior to that that called for Parmesan because when I looked at the above one again to make the garlic bread it said mozzarella. Ack. It turned out good though, so maybe I'll keep using Parmesan. I'm not sure how I feel about gooey garlic bread. The recipe called for crushed garlic. I had no idea what that is so mid-mixing, I had to do an internet search. There are a bunch of different methods but I opted to smash my cloves with a wooden spoon as I did not have any of the equipment on hand that the other methods needed. It's actually really fun but they get kind of slippery.
The whole meal turned out quite good despite the botching of some steps. My roommates did not throw up, nor did they make faces while eating, so all in all, success. To the left is a picture of my meal. Even though it was just soup and bread, it was surprisingly filling.The soup was sort of chowdery but it came out a little sweet. I think it was the cheese I used. Next time they say to use cheddar, I will refrain from using the pouch of Mexican cheese we had left over from our taco night. Lesson learned.
As you can see, I garnished it with some green onions and bacon bits. Nom nom. By the way, I didn't like bacon that much for a while because I thought it was too salty but I've really grown to appreciate it again after this meal.
I can't wait to see what the roomies come up with! Cough cough.
Next month, we might even try to do "in season" dishes with ingredients from the farmer's market. We is getting crazy.
