B, L, T and P soup - in a bread bowl!

Dinner, last night, we really enjoyed a B, L, T and P soup - Bacon, Leek, Tomato and Potato soup - which I served in toasted bread bowls. I got the recipe from the Food Network website, it's a Rachel Ray dish.

I changed it up just a bit. The recipe called for cooking the bacon in the soup pot and then cooking the veggies in the bacon fat and olive oil...I didn't do that. I baked the bacon and used it as a garnish. This is one to make again and again, however, I would add my own twists to it. The bacon added a needed flavor but we feel the soup needs a boost - the next time I make it, I think I'm going to skip the bacon but add some turkey kielbasa. We thought chicken wouldn't hold up so well but a sausage would the kicker is, I don't like sausage.

A few suggestions for making soup - any type - unless you make your own stock (who has time for that?) use reduced sodium stock; if the soup calls for canned tomatoes (as this one does) use reduced sodium. You can always add more salt but once it's there, it's there. I'm not a salt person and have recently started cooking with sea salt - it makes a huge difference. Having said that, I want to be in control of how much salt I eat - and especially the hubs and kids.

The bread bowl...well, that was simply a small hefty roll of bread I bought at the bakery in the super market. You'll want to get one that is crusty on the outside but has soft inside. I sliced off a small portion of the top, making a lid, and scooped out a good amount of the inside making a vessel to pour the soup in - keep some bread in the bowl to absorb the broth. From there, I baked the bowls and lids in a 375 degree oven for about 10 minutes to make the nice and toasty.  Once everything is done, I poured the soup into the bowls and added more broth so the bowl didn't absorb all the broth.

Left overs - yep, we had left overs! The hubs took a huge bowl to work, a couple pieces of bacon and two slices of chibatta bread. I had a smaller bowl (considerably compared to his...) with a few pieces of the left over bread bowl middles and a few thin, almost thick shreds, of extra sharp cheddar cheese - I skipped the bacon. It was really good, almost thinking it was even better today than yesterday.

A very satisfying dish to say the least! Makes the hamburgers we're having tonight seem boring....wah-wah-waaaaaaaaaah! ;-)

Enjoy - Be well!