After several weeks of on-again, off-again nausea, I'm starting to feel like a person again. A very hungry person. And while I still feel a little edgy around protein-rich foods, carbohydrates have been sounding wonderful.
At first, I practically lived off fruit: three pears and a giant grapefruit for breakfast, a pound of grapes for lunch, that sort of thing. Then, out of nowhere, my pregnant nose caught a whiff of French fries cooking somewhere, and I had a flash of, ohmygod that sounds SO good right now!
Unfortunately, fried food and I no longer see eye to eye. I love it, but it wants to date other people. People whose stomachs are not quite so sensitive to fat (and the likely gluten-by-proxy that happens to potatoes when a restaurant cooks all of its fried offerings together).
Because the real appeal of French fries (for me) is that warm, salty, potato-y flavor, I decided to whip up some potato soup. It scratched my food-itch and then some, coming together quickly and turning out much more satisfying than I'd expected. The secret ingredient is the potatoes themselves, half of which get blended with vegetable broth to give the soup a creamy base with no cream, dairy or otherwise.
Creamy Potato Soup
Serves 4 generously
3 lbs potatoes
4 cups vegetable broth
2 tbsp olive oil
1 large onion
1 large red bell pepper
2 medium carrots
2 cups water
2 tbsp nutritional yeast
You're going to need two pots for this.
Peel your potatoes and dice them fine. Place vegetable broth and half the diced potatoes in pot #1 over medium-high heat. Bring to a boil and cook 10 minutes or so, until potatoes are very tender.
Meanwhile, dice the onion. Heat olive oil in pot #2 over medium-high heat and add onion. Dice bell pepper and carrots, adding each vegetable to the onion as you finish dicing and stirring occasionally. When the onion looks nice and translucent, add water and remaining potatoes. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat to medium and cook, covered, 7-10 minutes, until potatoes are tender.
When your potato-broth mixture is thoroughly cooked, blend with an immersion blender until smooth. (You can also transfer the mixture to a blender or food processor to blend.) Add the blended potato mixture to pot #2, and stir to combine. Right before serving, stir in nutritional yeast.
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P.S. Rob suggested that this soup could be garnished with roasted chickpeas for some nice crunch (not to mention protein). While that sounds delicious to me in theory, legumes and I are not currently on speaking terms.
