Can't go wrong with Potatoes, Right?

As mentioned in my intro post about trying to rediscover my food-spiration through trying two new recipes a week for a month, my husband is super picky about food and prefers things of the cheese and red meat variety. He's been known to mock me when I mention chicken is for dinner by saying, "chicken, chicken, chicken" in a disgusted tone as if that's ALL we ever eat. I love this man more than life, but trying to decide what's for dinner has caused the majority of arguments in our relationship and marriage.

I recently purchased Joanna Gaines cookbook "Magnolia Table" after seeing my friend Ally create the recipes through her Instagram stories. After browsing through the new, crisp pages of this beautiful cookbook I came across the Country Potato Soup recipe on page 102. I'm not sure if it was the image of a pile of shredded white cheddar on top of this savory soup or my recent craving for pepper bacon, but I knew this was what was one the menu for Sunday night dinner. Liv and I hopped in the car and went to Publix to get all the essentials we needed. This adventure to Publix reminded me why we rarely shop there anymore because everything is SO expensive, but that's a topic for another day.

In order to give ya'll the best opinion of this recipe as possible, I actually followed it as closely as possible which I rarely do. The only exceptions were that I used dried thyme instead of fresh for budget purposes, used Better Than Bouillon base as opposed to broth and I did add some fresh rotisserie chicken for added protein. I included a photo of it so you know what I'm talking about because I had no idea this even existed until a year or so ago. It has an incredible amount of flavor is more savory than your average broth at the store. I highly recommend using this and keeping it in your kitchen at all times. Also, I even peeled the potatoes, which is basically Chinese water torture to me, so y'all are welcome (insert laughing emoji if those exist on blogs?)

I won't give an entire step by step, but this recipe was easy to make. Those of you with little to no cooking skills and can barely boil rice, I believe in you and know you could easily make this hearty soup. Joanna provides an easy to understand breakdown of the steps involved. Her recipes have been some of the easiest to follow of any cookbook I've read lately. My favorite step of the recipe was cooking the bacon because the aroma filled the house and made my pregnant self so happy.

The entire recipe took about an hour from prep to finish, slightly longer than the recipe suggests since I had a crabby toddler with a molar coming in attached to my leg the entire time. Olivia is not a huge fan of potatoes, but she actually ate some of this soup. She mostly ate the bacon, chicken and cheese but I'm going to count it as a win since she's barely eaten anything beyond raspberries and chicken nuggets lately. So, what did the ultimate critic, aka my husband, think of this soup? It was a hit! It had cheese, bacon and was creamy so what could he not love about it?! He went as far as saying that I could make this recipe again and I haven't heard those words in a long time. Thankfully he loves it because we're going to be eating leftovers for the next two or three days.

I'd give this recipe a 5/5 and highly recommend it if you're looking for a satisfying soup that the entire family will enjoy.

Now, what to make next?