Cooking: Smitten Kitchen's Crazy Delicious Baked Potato Soup

So we're wrapping up this vegetarian month experiment, and I was looking for a recipe to use up the leeks that I had left over from another meal. Lo and behold, this recipe for baked potato soup -- with two leeks! -- showed up on Smitten Kitchen last week.

I don't often make savory recipes from Smitten, because they tend to be too fussy for me. Needless to say, I don't mind the fuss if the result is a great dessert! But I already had the leeks and potatoes, and I thought this soup would be a good way to start the week. I whipped it up this past Monday, following the directions exactly as written, for once.


Oh. My. Goodness. The ingredients for the soup are pretty basic, but the final result is more than the sum of its parts. I'm guessing it's because of the head of garlic that gets simmered in vegetable broth with the leeks long before the potatoes are introduced.

I love that this recipe uses ingredients I almost always have on hand -- I'd guess one could sub onions for leeks in an emergency. I love that the recipe is finished with a modest amount of (light) sour cream rather than a load of half and half. And while there are no actual baked potatoes in the soup, it's fun to pile on toppings like shredded cheese and chopped scallions. You can bet there will be bacon there too, after next week.