New Recipe from the Po' Bastard Kitchen

Hey all. This soup was created when I realized our celery would go moldy unless someone did something with it. That someone is me, because Andrew doesn't eat celery. I'm pretty satisfied with the taste of it; but next time I'd chop the celery smaller so it mashes easier, and doesn't leave tons of visible strings in the soup.

Note of warning to Munka B: do not try this soup, to you it would taste like "packing tape."

**Sour Cream of Celery Soup**
Ingredients:
-Bunch of celery: wash, trim, slice small and thin
-Half yellow onion: chunkily chopped
-One medium potato, I left the skin on but you don't have to
-three whole cloves of garlic, skinned
-2/3 c. sour cream, warmed up in the micro
-butter, 2-3 tbsp. more if you want
-salt and pepper to taste
-chicken broth
-6 cups water

Method:
Prepare the celery, onion, potato, and garlic as described in "Ingredients." Boil them for a long time in six cups of water; everything should be very soft. Strain the celery mixture, and reserve the cooking liquid. You will notice that the vegetables will have absorbed most of the water, so you'll probably only have two cups of reserved liquid. Put the cooking juices back into the pan, and dissolve your broth cube in it. I only needed one cube, but you should check how many cups of water your cubes take. Meanwhile, add about two tablespoons of butter to the vegetable mixture. Grind in some salt and pepper. Mash everything up until it's nice and smooth. Warm the sour cream in the micro. Then, add it to the vegetable mash, and stir everything together again. Take the broth off the fire, and stir in the sour cream and vegetable mix. Give everything a few good stirs to incorporate it together.

Notes:
As I mentioned in the intro, next time I'd cut the celery smaller. My soup, though it tastes OK, would be better if it were more smooth. One way to remedy the too-chunky problem is to use a food processor or a blender to puree it. My Po' Bastard Kitchen lacks fancy equipment. If you don't have any equipment and have to rely on the potato masher, make sure you pretty much dice the shit out of the celery. Also, If I'd had any white wine or vermouth, I would've replaced one or two cups of water with wine, because wine makes food taste good.

I make soup at least once per week with whatever leftover vegetables we have in the house. During our first week here, I also made a half-assed version of Mulligatawny Soup. But mine lacked chicken, and relied more on onions, carrots, half an apple, some broken up spaghetti noodles (instead of rice), and a handful of little raisins. Sounds gross, but it was actually pretty good-- spicy and sweet, like my sister Angela. I will put this recipe up if I make the soup again and it turns out as good.