Day 20 & 21: Potato Soup and Sunshine Toast (3 Moms)

Something new for me was my own potato soup and sunshine toast.

I tried a new recipe for potato soup yesterday. Actually, I've never made potato soup before except from a mix, so this is also my first recipe for potato soup that I've ever made.

I had to make a couple substitutions because I didn't have the ingredients on hand, but it turned out great anyway. My family unanimously stated that they liked it and would like me to make it again, although I tend to doubt the veracity of Jerah's statement that she liked it. It was plainly obvious that she decided before even tasting the soup that she would not like it, yet she told me she did like it to avoid a confrontation.

With that being said, here's the recipe as I followed it. This is my altered recipe for potato soup; the original recipe can be found here.

Baked Potato Soup

INGREDIENTS

• 4 bacon strips, diced
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 2 clove garlic, minced
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon dried basil
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 3 cups chicken broth (I made mine with boullion)
• 2 large baked potatoes, peeled and cubed (I used 4 small russets)
• 1 can cream of celery soup + 1 can 2% milk
• A pinch of red pepper flakes
• Shredded Colby Jack/Cheddar cheese

DIRECTIONS

1. In a large saucepan, cook bacon until crisp. Drain, reserving 1 tablespoon drippings. Set bacon aside.
2. Saute onion and garlic in the drippings until tender.
3. Stir in flour, salt, basil and pepper; mix well.
4. Gradually add broth.
5. Bring to boil; boil and stir for 2 minutes.
6. Add the potatoes, cream soup, milk, and red pepper flakes; heat through but do not boil.
7. Garnish with bacon and cheese and enjoy!

We all fended for ourselves for dinner tonight, and I was in the mood for breakfast, so I cooked up some sunshine toast.

Now, before this week, I'd never even heard of sunshine toast, but I now know that it's not a new thing at all. I've just apparently been in complete ignorance about it. But the whole idea of sunshine toast solves a problem that we've had when we fry eggs on the griddle. The white of the eggs always spread out way too much, making them difficult to flip in addition to making a big mess. Sunshine toast, since it's basically frying an egg inside a hole made in a slice of bread, solves the problem beautifully by containing the egg whites while the egg cooks.

So if you are—like I was until recently—completely clueless about what sunshine toast is, hopefully this little tutorial will help. The directions are extremely simple:

1. Butter both sides of a piece of bread, cut a circular hole out of the center of the bread with a biscuit cutter (save the circle you cut out), and then put the bread on a griddle or pan.
2. Crack an egg into the center of the bread and let it cook for a while.
3. Once it's set slightly, flip the toast and let the egg finish cooking.
4. I also cooked the circles on the griddle and made miniature Texas toast (great for soaking up the yolk if you like your eggs over easy!).

This isn't the only way to make sunshine toast, of course. Some people melt butter in the pan, put in the toast, then crack the egg into the hole. Others may put the toast in the pan, let it brown on one side, and then flip it before cracking the egg into the hole. Some cover the pan at that point so the bread/egg doesn't have to be flipped again, yet the white still sets.

There's no one right way to make sunshine toast; just find the way that works for you.

I'm really excited that I finally found out about sunshine toast because this is a breakfast recipe that the kids, namely Jaden since he's the one that likes fried eggs, will easily be able to make on their own.

Between the potato soup and the sunshine toast I am definitely learning from our 31 day challenge of 3 moms, 3 kitchens, 31 days.

Make sure you visit Kate’s and Toni’s blogs and see what's going on in their kitchen's.