Potato Cheddar Soup

Even though this is a potato soup, and some of those are vegetarian, this one's not. The first ingredient is bacon. Yummy yummy bacon. We had this for supper tonight, out of the Everything Soup cookbook.

Potato Cheddar Soup
1/4 lb bacon, diced
1 large onion, diced
1 1/2 lbs potatoes, diced (I scrubbed mine really well and left the peel on but you could peel them too if you wanted to)
1/2 tsp fresh minced sage (I used 1/8 tsp dried)
3/4 cup shredded sharp white cheddar cheese
1 tsp mustard (I used dried mustard)
3 cups chicken broth (I used homemade stock)
1 1/2 cups cream
1 dash tabasco sauce (omitted)
salt & pepper to taste
Scallions, thinly sliced, for garnish, optional (forgot to buy them)

Heat an empty soup pot; add the bacon. As it releases fat, turn the heat up to medium and cook until crisp. Drain off all but 1 tbsp of the fat. Add the butter (what?? there's no butter in the ingredient list! I just didn't add any in), onion, and sage to the soup pot with the bacon; simmer for 3 minutes, stirring frequently. Add mustard and cook for 1 more minute.

Pour in the broth and add the potatoes. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium, and cook for 13 minutes. Mash some of the potatoes against the side of the pot, stirring to thicken the mixture. Remove from heat.

Gradually stir in the cream, then the cheese; stir constantly until melted. Add the hot sauce, salt, and pepper. Garnish with scallions.

Okay I used half-and-half instead of cream. I thought it would just be a better choice. This soup did not have the traditional look of potato soups, where the broth is kind of white. Mine was browner, but I think it was because my stock is darker than chicken broth you buy in the store. It came out really good. Everybody but Nathan liked it, but you can't really judge things by him. We will definitely have this again. So good.