{"id":1016,"date":"2015-03-02T09:29:01","date_gmt":"2015-03-02T15:29:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/?p=1016"},"modified":"2015-11-06T11:15:36","modified_gmt":"2015-11-06T17:15:36","slug":"midwestern-blues-potato-cheese-soup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/?p=1016","title":{"rendered":"Midwestern Blues: Potato Cheese Soup"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0;float:none\"><iframe src=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/like.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fthesoupblog.com%2F%3Fp%3D1016&amp;layout=button_count&amp;show_faces=true&amp;action=like&amp;font=arial&amp;colorscheme=light&amp;width=450&amp;height=30\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" allowTransparency=\"true\" style=\"border:none; overflow:hidden; width: 450px; height: 30px;\"><\/iframe><\/div><p><strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1017\" style=\"width: 329px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><strong><a rel=\"attachment wp-att-1017\" href=\"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/?attachment_id=1017\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1017\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1017    \" style=\"border: 10px solid green;\" title=\"Blue Cheese\" src=\"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/Blue-Cheese.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"319\" height=\"268\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/Blue-Cheese.jpg 319w, https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/Blue-Cheese-100x84.jpg 100w, https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/Blue-Cheese-300x252.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 319px) 100vw, 319px\" \/><\/a><\/strong><p id=\"caption-attachment-1017\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A Slice of Blues<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.\u00a0 It\u2019s the cheese.<\/p>\n<p>And yet the rot is what makes the stuff so good.\u00a0 I\u2019m talking specifically about Danish Blue Cheese, one of the ingredients in this week\u2019s soup.<\/p>\n<p>From what I understand Danish blue is a Scandinavian knock-off of Roquefort, although it\u2019s milder and saltier. They make it by injecting the Roquefort mold into the curds with copper wires or rods, which makes it sound like some kind of Frankenstein cheese. Then the cheese is allowed to age so it becomes increasingly less monstrous. (Would that aging did the same for the rest of us.)<\/p>\n<p><strong>FYI:<\/strong> The cheese I used this week is actually from Wisconsin, where the cheese is certainly not rotten, but some of the heads seem a little off (not that I\u2019m taking sides or nothin\u2019).<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s funny how many of our best foods have to do with rot.\u00a0 Besides blue cheese (almost all cheese really, if you count curdling), there are all sorts of food and drink that get their character from fermentation\/fungus.\u00a0 Yeast leavens bread, turns juice into wine and malted barley into beer all by feeding on sugar and converting it into CO2 and alcohol.\u00a0 Then there\u2019s the practice of aging beef, which still turns my stomach.<\/p>\n<p>I guess these foods made their way into our diets because they didn\u2019t kill us.\u00a0 Unlike some of their more rotten counterparts.<\/p>\n<p>When some things go bad, they really go bad.<\/p>\n<p>Take potatoes, once they get start to go, they\u2019re beyond redemption.\u00a0 Are they poisonous?\u00a0 Well, I\u2019ll have to get back to you on that.<\/p>\n<p>Not to worry, though, the potatoes that make up the other key ingredient in this week\u2019s soup are the not-even-close-to-poisonous kind.\u00a0 \u00a0The trick is to use them before they rot.<\/p>\n<p>The result was my version of Potato cheese soup.<\/p>\n<p>Until now I had sampled potato cheese soups at various restaurants but I\u2019d never made any myself.\u00a0 Most of the soups I\u2019d tasted went with cheddar cheese or some sour cream variation for their cheesy goodness.\u00a0 I thought that a blue cheese would be a lot more interesting.<\/p>\n<p>I was right.<\/p>\n<p>The soup was a big hit at the family dinner table.\u00a0 Even the girls went back for seconds, which is the only true compliment.\u00a0 The soup actually made a second appearance the following night when I added peas and artichoke hearts and turned the whole thing into a sauce for some frozen ravioli we had on hand.<\/p>\n<p>It turns out the cheese isn\u2019t so rotten after all.\u00a0 And the weather\u2019s been pretty nice this week too.<\/p>\n<p>At least the cheese will last.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Blue Cheese Potato Soup<br \/>\n<\/strong>(serves 6-8)<br \/>\n1 T canola oil<br \/>\n1 medium onion, sliced<br \/>\n6 cups stock<br \/>\n3 lbs potatoes, peeled and chopped (don\u2019t use rotten ones)<br \/>\nSalt and pepper to taste<br \/>\n1 \u00bd cups blue cheese (crumbed into bits)<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Heat the oil over medium heat in a 2-3 quart soup pot,      add the onion and saut\u00e9 until slightly brown.<\/li>\n<li>Add the stock, potatoes and seasoning and bring the      mixture to a boil before reducing it to a simmer for 20-30 minutes.<\/li>\n<li>Puree all the cooked chunks of potato using an      immersion blender until the soup\u2019s consistency is very smooth.<\/li>\n<li>Add the blue cheese and stir until the crumbled bits of      cheese dissolve into the soup base.<\/li>\n<li>Serve warm and eat.\u00a0      You won\u2019t be disappointed.\u00a0 You      might even eat it the next night too.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><em>Image Credit: <\/em>\u201cBlue Veined Goodness\u201d from the Public Domain.\u00a0 <strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Now that I live adjacent to the nation\u2019s #2 cheese producing state, I feel the urge to stick up for Californian cheese, but I think I can resist it.\u00a0 No point in cheesing anyone off.\u00a0 What are your aged dairy allegiances? \u00a0Leave a comment.<\/strong><strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.\u00a0 It\u2019s the cheese. And yet the rot is what makes the stuff so good.\u00a0 I\u2019m talking specifically about Danish Blue Cheese, one of the ingredients in this week\u2019s soup. From what I understand Danish blue is a Scandinavian knock-off of Roquefort, although it\u2019s milder and saltier. They [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,15,16,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-soups-that-have-been-pureed-blended-pulverized","category-cheese","category-potatoes","category-vegetarian"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1016"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1016\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1138,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1016\/revisions\/1138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}