Create Don't Hesitate - Philosophy in the Kitchen

It's been so very rainy around these parts for what seems like weeks now. Thankfully, I've gotten to the point in my life where I don't complain about stuff that I don't want in my life, I just work with them and around them. So with all this 'bad' weather, I figured I'd use the opportunity to work on my lawn which has had some really bad spots and since the ground was primed and well watered, I started spreading lawn seed and now I'm happy to see a lot of new grass coming up. Go, Rain!

So this morning it started raining some more and somewhere deep in my bones, my body said, "I want soup." I thought of what was in the kitchen and changed my thought to, "I want potato soup." It already sounded so comforting and warm and I couldn't wait to get into the kitchen to make some.

Now this is the part where I want people to buckle in. I'm not going to give you every step of what went into making the soup and I'm not going to give you a grocery list or rundown of measurements because mysteries are made to be solved and when you do, it's so much more satisfying than doing something right because someone gave you the answers. This is the same as throwing someone into a swimming pool to see if they sink or swim. Time to swim.

I've been cooking much more this way and believe me, it's so much more satisfying knowing you created it yourself, especially if it turns out good. Remember, this is a state of mind you need to get in to be able to pull off. Maybe sometimes you'll get lucky, but having the right attitude about delving into uncharted areas takes a bit of confidence and balls. Just tell yourself, No problem. I got this.

Now, back to the potato soup. I'd never made it until today, nor have I ever really made a creamy soup. I'm very new to soups, but I told myself, "This is going to be easy and delicious." I started visualizing how I wanted it and that pretty much determined what I was going to do and how I was going to do it. I saw a creamy soup with square chunks of potato, black flecks of pepper and a little more visualizing conjured up some caramelized onions that sat on top. Now go back to the top photo and see how it turned out. 😊

All I needed to start was to see that I wanted some small cubes of potato to mix with a creamy base. I peeled and cubed up some taters, boiled them until soft. From that batch I separated some and put the rest in a food processor. I also had some buttermilk which I needed to use and hoped it would work, I figured it would, but I'd never done this before. With this I added most of the carmelized onions I prepped to give it that smokey umph I could already taste. I also roasted about five cloves of garlic and put them through a press into the potatoes and purreéd the whole thing.

So far so good. This mixture I added to a vegetable broth and used a whisk to smooth it out. I added a pinch of saffron, salt, paprika and a good shaving of nutmeg. Taste. Taste. It's working and turning ito exactly what I'd imagined! Now I said I wasn't going to tell you exactly how I did it, but that is the basics. My point is that sometimes all you need is a desire and the motivation to do something to make it happen and my desire resulted in the best potato soup I've ever eaten. What's your desire? Do you have the motivation to achieve that desire? And how will you execute that motivation?